What connects Dobrovoljačka and Sanski Most - Kajganić, and why he must go, but also be held accountable!

By: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

After it was announced today that the Chief Prosecutor of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, Milanko Kajganić, halted the submission of an indictment for war crimes in Sanski Most and Manjača to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the legitimate question arises more than ever as to why this same Kajganić insisted, signed, and pushed forward the indictment in the “Dobrovoljačka” case against Ejup Ganić and others, as well as a series of indictments against members of the Army of RBiH.

The information published today by Detektor, based on a letter from state prosecutor Izet Odobašić to the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, reveals that Kajganić prohibited the submission of an already filed indictment for judicial confirmation in a case concerning grave crimes against humanity, mass unlawful imprisonment, torture, and the deaths of at least 40 detainees, as well as the forced deportation of over 1,600 civilians of non-Serb nationality.

This is a case in which high-ranking officials of police and security structures from Sanski Most and Banja Luka are suspected, and which, according to available information, has even statistically “disappeared” from the annual report of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, despite an indictment having been filed.

The BiH Prosecutor's Office denies obstruction. However, the facts remain: the indictment for mass crimes against civilians has not been sent to the BiH Court, while in another case, the “Dobrovoljačka” case, the Prosecutor's Office, under the leadership of Milanko Kajganić, showed unusual zeal, speed, and persistence.

It is precisely this double standard that the accused in the “Dobrovoljačka” case, including former high-ranking officials of the MUP of RBiH, have been warning about for years. In an extensive letter sent to domestic and international institutions, they previously labeled this procedure as a judicial joint criminal enterprise aimed at historical revisionism and equating the victim and the aggressor.

The “Dobrovoljačka” case represents a politically fabricated process, conceived outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina and realized through the BiH Prosecutor's Office, with the aim of relativizing established facts about the aggression against BiH and replacing them with a narrative of a “civil war”.

Today, the knowledge that Kajganić halted the filing of an indictment against members of the VRS indicates that the accused in the 'Dobrovoljačka' case have been right all along, and that the very top of the Prosecutor's Office is exclusively working on revisionism.

This is further proven by the fact that the 2022 indictment, signed by Milanko Kajganić and prosecutor Mladen Vukojičić, was filed after the Hague Prosecutor's Office had previously suspended the investigation due to lack of evidence, and after British and Austrian courts refused to extradite Ejup Ganić and Jovan Divjak to Serbia.

In that context, today's information about the halting of the indictment for Sanski Most and Manjača sheds additional, serious light on the way the BiH Prosecutor's Office, under its current leadership, chooses which cases to “push” and which to put away in drawers.

Why could crimes with hundreds of dead and thousands of victims be blocked by an administrative decision of the chief prosecutor, while at the same time insisting on a process that has already been definitively deemed unfounded?

Why are the attacks on Sarajevo on May 2, 1992, not being prosecuted, but revisionist presentation of evidence concerning that very date is allowed in a case formally related to May 3? And finally, by what criteria does Milanko Kajganić assess what is “in the interest of justice” and what is not?

The Sanski Most, Manjača, and “Dobrovoljačka” cases can no longer be viewed separately today. Together, they form a mirror of the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina – a mirror in which selective justice, institutional silence, and a dangerous readiness to subordinate historical facts to political goals are becoming increasingly visible. And therein lies the agenda of those who aided and abetted crimes for their Greater-Serbian projects.

Precisely because of this, the question of the accountability of the chief state prosecutor is no longer just a professional or disciplinary matter. It becomes a question of defending the legal order and the truth about the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kajganić is not the first prosecutor to face removal from the head of the BiH Prosecutor's Office before the end of his term. All those before him have left, some due to indictments, some resigned, but those are mere nuances.

If we want the Prosecutor's Office and the judiciary of BiH to heal, Kajganić should not just leave without the omissions in the work of the Prosecutor's Office under his leadership being investigated, without accountability being sought, and without establishing any potential violation of the rights of the accused through the methods of Kajganić's principals, rather than by force of law.

Not a small number of people have been tormented in the BiH Court precisely by indictments filed by the Prosecutor's Office with Kajganić at its head, and who were acquitted after arduous proceedings because the indictments were not the product of evidence and legal elements, but a project of a political agenda.