Tahirović: BiH Council of Ministers' Conclusion Freed Accused from A List, Prosecution of BiH Defenders Will Continue!

By: Rasim Belko

And Elmedin Konaković, Nermin Nikšić, and Edin Forto will be surprised, laugh, and ask what they have betrayed and defend against the opposition by claiming they are better protectors of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The text before you will best reveal how far the Sarajevo trio is willing to go in selling state (pro-Bosniak) interests, because they are not only ready to stop the prosecution of war criminals, but they have agreed to it, but only after Milanko Kajganić and his team successfully conclude the prosecution of the defenders of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It has long been clear to us that the trio doesn't know how to run a state, but we didn't know they were ready to push the best sons and daughters of this country into the hell of judicial prosecution; now it is clear. It is also clear to us that they will "free" those for whom the Hague Tribunal stated there was a reasonable suspicion of war crimes and placed them on the A list.

Otherwise, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina today adopted the Information from the Ministry of Justice regarding the conclusion of the Supervisory Body for Monitoring the Implementation of the Revised State Strategy for Working on War Crimes Cases.

At the session, the proposal of this supervisory body was accepted to extend the implementation of Strategic Goal I of the Revised State Strategy for Working on War Crimes Cases by two years, which states: 'Prosecute the most complex and priority war crimes cases before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other cases before the judicial bodies of the entities and Brčko District of BiH until the end of 2023,' so that the final deadline for implementation would be extended to the end of 2025.

The Information states that the current dynamics of resolving war crimes cases and the number of remaining unresolved war crimes cases before the BiH judiciary indicate the impossibility of resolving them within the set deadline by the end of this year.

We asked Murat Tahirović, president of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, for a comment, who says: "By adopting the Information from the Ministry of Justice regarding the conclusion of the Supervisory Body for Monitoring the Implementation of the Revised State Strategy for Working on War Crimes Cases, the BiH Council of Ministers has formalized the established obstructions and blockades and announced the end of the prosecution of war criminals."

Tahirović: Over 300 A-list cases thrown in the trash (Photo: Patria)
"Namely, by adopting the proposal to continue prosecuting war crimes exclusively based on only one goal, namely complexity of cases, and that until 2025, without adopting information on the fate of approx. 300 cases from Annex B of the Revised Strategy, it is a definitive attempt to thwart further prosecution of war criminals by 2025. Annex B cases are known as Category A cases from the Hague Tribunal, and almost all cases are against individuals of Serbian and Croatian nationality," Tahirović told Patria.

According to him, the rest of the revised strategy is rejected in the information and is no longer binding for the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, as well as for other prosecutor's offices in BiH, which is a clear indicator of how superficially Bosniaks in BiH institutions approach the resolution of any problem, including the problem of war crimes.

"By neglecting Annex B of the revised strategy, which provides for the prosecution of cases from the A lists of the Hague Tribunal, the BiH Council of Ministers has practically enabled over 300 A-list cases from the Hague Tribunal to be thrown into the trash, and these cases will practically never be prosecuted. In the next period (two years) until the end of 2025, as planned by the adopted information, we estimate that the hunt against members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will continue, and then the prosecution of criminals in BiH will end," Tahirović states.

He also states that they have been warning for over ten years and have practically "pushed" the A list through Annex B of the revised strategy with great difficulty, but all of it is in vain.

"We demand from the BiH Council of Ministers an urgent report on the implementation of cases from Annex B, bearing in mind that Annex B was a priority by the decision of the BiH Council of Ministers. We demand a change in conclusions, because the priority of work on Annex B cases should be re-emphasized and responsibility for omissions and inaction on Annex B should be determined, and we demand that the conclusion of the BiH Council of Ministers clearly state that the state strategy and the prosecution of war criminals will never cease in BiH, regardless of blockades, obstructions, and denials of the legacy of the Hague Court," Tahirović concluded.