COMMENTARY: Bosnia's Judiciary in the Hands of Serbia, Indictments at the Whim of Political Powerbrokers and False Witnesses

By: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

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With each new case before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one learns some startling fact, and many manipulations and inaction occurring in BiH state institutions come to light. The latest in the series is the Čemerno case, in which 12 people, members of the Army of the Republic of BiH, were indicted for joint criminal enterprise, and the protected witness of the Prosecutor's Office, pressured by many objections from lawyers, admitted that SIPA officers told him what to say, and he signed it!?

For whom are the BiH Prosecutor's Office and SIPA doing this, and whose interests are they protecting? Do the security services of our neighbouring countries, Serbia and Croatia, have their own people in this institution through whom more and more fabricated processes are being created for the purpose of equalising and creating balance when it comes to the aggression against BiH. 

The introduction of ethnic balance in the prosecution of war crimes is evident; the occasional weak attempt at resistance ends in a statement from political powerbrokers. On the other hand, the instigators of the indictments are not resting.
In the aforementioned Čemerno case, prosecutor Vladimir Simović openly stated that the National Assembly of Republika Srpska made a decision to file an indictment against the Bosniaks of Ilijaš and Breza!?

When the legal teams in this case reacted by seeking an explanation as to why no indictment was filed against the commanders and perpetrators of the shelling and killing of hundreds of civilians from Čemerno, Simović casually replied that the investigation was ongoing. Meanwhile, the process against the Bosniaks who, in sneakers and with little weaponry, eliminated the howitzers from Čemerno that were sowing death all the way to Sarajevo, is well underway. According to available documents, around 1,000 shells were fired from Čemerno!

The legal team of the now-acquitted Naser Orić requested that the competent security services investigate who the protected witness O1 is. The Trial Chamber, composed of  Šaban Maksumić, Presiding Judge of the Chamber, and Judges Staniša Gluhajić and Vesna Jesenković, prohibited this from being done. It remains unclear why the security services of this country did not do their job ex officio. 

This process has opened a Pandora's box regarding the judicial darkness. A large number of documents and the testimony of O1 itself confirmed the involvement of Serbia and its security service in this, as well as many other cases being conducted before the Court of BiH, and suspicions are increasingly being realised that the Prosecutor's Office of Serbia and its security services are managing the BiH Prosecutor's Office and the Court of BiH.
Aleksandar Vučić, the President of Serbia, in his first statements before the start of the trial, had details from the indictment, which had not yet been publicly read, about how Orić gouged out eyes and that he had a witness for it.

Later, that witness of Vučić's, otherwise a mentally ill person, a criminal with 11 final verdicts, showed his true colours when it came to his testimony. However, at one point he became confused and forgot about the eye-gouging. Then Vučić asked who paid him to change his testimony, a question Vučić should pose to his prosecutors Vukčević, Janjić...
Samir Avdić, the former "key witness" of the Prosecutor's Office of Serbia in the case that led to Orić's arrest in Switzerland on a Belgrade warrant in June 2015, also finally decided to speak publicly.

Then the role of the state of Serbia in this case became clearer, and due to whose insistence the wartime commander of Srebrenica, at least judging by the public statements of the neighbouring country's president, Aleksandar Vučić, had to be found guilty at all costs. However, Serbia's cadres in the BiH Prosecutor's Office did not succeed.

Statistics are relentless. In the last three years, the BiH Prosecutor's Office has mostly indicted Bosniaks, and from reliable sources I learn that an even larger number of indictments against Bosniaks is planned, and they will include some high-ranking politicians from BiH. 

It is incomprehensible that 23 years after the war, the security services have done nothing and the BiH Prosecutor's Office has not filed a single indictment against members of the VRS and police for keeping Sarajevo under siege, shelling and sniping, and other crimes in which 15,000 people were killed, including 1,500 children. 

But, an indictment was filed against General Ramiz Dreković for firing three shells at Kalinovik. In the birthplace of war criminal Ratko Mladić, the only Guard Brigade of the VRS was stationed at the time, preparing, together with other VRS units and special forces from Serbia, to move onto the Bradina plateau and thus place Sarajevo in a total encirclement and exert pressure on the military and political leadership of BiH for the purpose of dividing the state between Serbia and Croatia.

Citizens of BiH have all these years been financing with their money the 'incompetents' whose task and job description is to work on war crimes investigations, but the focus of their activity is personal enrichment and fulfilling the wishes of political instigators.

The HJPC must urgently react when it comes to false and non-credible witnesses that the BiH Prosecutor's Office is massively bringing before the Court of BiH in fabricated processes.

Otherwise, the HJPC, the Court and the Prosecutor's Office become a danger to the state and citizens, whereas they should be the foundation of security and the rule of law.