Brammertz no longer waiting: Hague prosecutors stepping in as BiH Prosecutor's Office ignores A-list, siege of Sarajevo, Goražde...

By Amina Čorbo-Zećo

Chief Prosecutor of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Serge Brammertz, has decided to take a step that can be read between the lines as a sharp message to the domestic judiciary – there is no more time to wait. A new, joint investigative team has been formed in cooperation with the BiH Prosecutor's Office to work on war crimes cases. Behind the diplomatic form lies a much more serious reality, mistrust, and professional frustration.

"Two months ago, we submitted a detailed investigative dossier to the Chief Prosecutor concerning individuals suspected of heinous crimes against humanity," Brammertz said, emphasizing that the team will start working this week.

However, what Brammertz did not say aloud, but which everyone in judicial circles knows, is that this is a response to the years-long neglect of the most serious cases by domestic institutions.

International prosecutors are particularly hurt by the outcome of the Dobrovoljačka case, which was closed long ago in The Hague without grounds for indictment.

Nevertheless, the BiH Prosecutor's Office has decided to reopen the case, contrary to those conclusions, ignoring the legal and factual material that has already been exhaustively analyzed in The Hague. For Brammertz and his team, this is not only professionally incomprehensible but also a deeply offensive message that the integrity of international justice is being challenged.

In addition, the BiH judiciary has never fully respected the so-called A-list, i.e., the list of cases that the Hague Tribunal explicitly designated as priorities and which were to be prosecuted after the closure of the Tribunal. Many of these cases have been shelved, some forgotten, and most have never seen an indictment.

Meanwhile, indictments have been filed against members of the Army of RBiH and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of RBiH in cases that were not even on the Hague lists.

Because how can one explain that to this day there is no indictment for the siege of Sarajevo, despite thousands of killed civilians? How is it possible that the crimes in Goražde, a city that was under artillery fire for months, are treated as a footnote in judicial statistics?

Brammertz is now trying to correct what the domestic system has missed or refused to do. This has also been done under a kind of pressure from victims' associations who, for many years, due to the situation we have, have been asking for advisors from The Hague to come to the BiH Prosecutor's Office.

"Our office has established a joint team that will conduct further investigations with the aim of preparing indictments as soon as possible," he stated, making it clear that the international community has lost patience.

If this joint team succeeds, it will be recorded that those who are furthest from justice had to seek it again, but with the greatest responsibility. Because those who are closest to it, in Sarajevo, in the Prosecutor's Office buildings, increasingly choose silence or fabricated indictments. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the truth must not wait.