Cantonal Prosecutor's Office Takes Over Case of Sniper Activity in Sarajevo

(Patria) - The case concerning the sniper activity of VRS members in the Nedžarići settlement during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, initiated in 2021 after the release of a video that caused numerous reactions, has been transferred to the jurisdiction of the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecutor's Office, Detektor has confirmed.

The Prosecutor's Office of Sarajevo Canton confirmed to Detektor that the case was assigned to a prosecutor after being transferred from the BiH Prosecutor's Office in April.

The State Prosecutor's Office also confirmed that the case was transferred to the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office for processing by a decision of the Court of BiH.

“In the Special Department for War Crimes, cases related to the suffering of civilians in Sarajevo from sniper fire are being processed,” the BiH Prosecutor's Office stated for Detektor.

More than three years have passed since the BiH Prosecutor's Office announced that it would investigate the circumstances and roles of individuals from the sniper footage in Sarajevo during the war, which was published by the media.

In May 2021, a French journalist released a wartime recording showing a soldier talking and shooting at civilians in Sarajevo.

Following the release of the footage, the company “Telemach” announced that they recognized one of their employees in the video, whom they suspended, and requested information from the BiH Prosecutor's Office and the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecutor's Office on whether a war crimes investigation was being conducted against him.

Earlier, the Prosecutor's Office told Detektor that they were awaiting the case to be transferred in accordance with the State Strategy for Processing War Crimes Cases.

Another Day of Remembrance for the murdered children of Sarajevo, for whose deaths no direct perpetrators have been held accountable, was marked today.

By verdicts in The Hague, former political and military leaders of Republika Srpska – Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, as well as the former commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, Stanislav Galić, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the campaign of terror against civilians, sniper and artillery attacks. The former commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, Dragomir Milošević, was sentenced to 29 years in prison for terror against civilians in Sarajevo.

Detektor's research has previously shown that, although the Hague database contains numerous reports and orders, as well as expert opinions from military experts on where a particular shell, aerial bomb was fired from, or from which territory a sniper operated – which were used in the case against Dragomir Milošević, as well as Stanislav Galić and Radovan Karadžić – these pieces of evidence have not led to their prosecution by regional prosecutor's offices, even 26 years after the end of the war, for command or individual responsibility.

The Hague verdicts state that sniper activity was widespread throughout the city, that civilians were deliberately targeted by “sniper rifles,” causing the deaths and injuries of numerous Sarajevo residents.