Bosnia Issues Just One Srebrenica Indictment in a Year

Since the last annual commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide in July 2022, the Bosnian state prosecution has only filed one indictment for Srebrenica crimes - charging a suspect who lives in Serbia and cannot be arrested.

Serbian citizen Miomir Jasikovac, the wartime commander of the military police company of the Bosnian Serb Army's Zvornik Brigade, was charged with genocide for assisting members of a joint criminal enterprise whose plan was to imprison and execute military-age men from Srebrenica in July 1995 and forcibly relocate women, children and elderly people.

A few days before the confirmation of the indictment in Bosnia, the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office filed its own indictment charging Jasikovac and on the same day - December 5, 2022 - signed a plea bargain with him.

On the basis of the plea bargain, Jasikovac was sentenced by Belgrade Higher Court to five years in prison for complicity in a war crime against the civilian population.

According to Bosnia's revised strategy for war crimes cases, the prosecution's priority should be the most complex cases. But the prosecution claims that in a third of these priority cases, the suspects are unavailable.

War victims' associations argue however that the prosecution is evading its responsibilities.

Sehida Abdurahmanovic from the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves association said that war victims are unhappy while perpetrators walk around free.

"We from the association have issued warnings and sent letters about some of the perpetrators, but nothing has happened," Abdurahmanovic said.

The Bosnian state prosecution said that since its Special Department for War Crimes started operating in 2005, about 50 people have been indicted for...