ČOVIĆ'S GIFT TO SERBIAN POLITICS Former BiH Minister of (IN)Justice Josip Grubeša signed the transfer of war criminal Garić to Serbia

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Rade Garić, a convicted war criminal, was transferred to Serbia yesterday to serve his sentence. The decision on his relocation was signed by Josip Grubeša, the Minister of Justice of BiH in the previous convocation, in mid-December last year, N1 reports.

A former member of the Army of Republika Srpska was definitively sentenced last year to 17 years in prison for crimes against humanity against Bosniaks in the Vlasenica and Srebrenica areas.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was not informed of the decision of the Ministry of Justice, nor was the Prosecutor's Office, which is reportedly conducting several investigations in which Rade Garić is mentioned. The Court clarified that the Ministry of Justice is not obliged to do so.

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Rade Garić obtained Serbian citizenship during the court proceedings.

A similar case occurred five years ago when Grubeša signed a decision for serving a sentence in Croatia, in the case of Marko Radić, who was convicted of war crimes in the Mostar area, based on the Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.

It was stated then that "the procedure for transferring the execution of prison sentences to another country is a special form of international legal assistance that is primarily based on mutual trust between countries and represents an advantage for the convicted person to serve the sentence in a way that would achieve their resocialization, as well as an облегчение for the state because it does not have to pay the costs of serving the sentence of that person anymore.".

When imposing a sentence, the court of the requested state cannot impose a heavier sentence than the one imposed in the state of sentencing, but it can reduce the sentence by imposing it within the limits of the sentence according to its legislation and practice in similar cases.

In theory and practice, it is "accepted that dual citizenship does not prevent a person from choosing in which country, whose citizenship they have, they will serve their sentence, provided that other conditions of the agreement are met," Josip Grubeša explained at the time.

Let us recall that Marko Radić's sentence of 21 years was commuted to 12 and a half years in prison: "The County Court then accepted the verdict, but according to Croatian laws. The sentence was reduced because the criminal offense related to the joint criminal enterprise is not provided for in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia in that legal situation, so Radić became a free man in Croatia because he had already served part of his sentence in BiH.".

In Serbia, Rade Garić's sentence of 17 years in prison, as he was definitively sentenced in BiH, was confirmed.