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<<previous | index | next>> BackgroundWhile the estimates of the total number of casualties in the Bosnian war vary—from early ones putting the number above 200,000, to the more plausible recent estimates placing the number at around 100,0001—there is little disagreement that the majority of war crimes were committed by Bosnian Serb forces. Among the 161 persons indicted by the ICTY, seventy-seven are ethnic Serbs suspected of committing war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.2 In Republika Srpska, however, suspects have enjoyed effective impunity for war crimes for most of the past decade. Before November 2005, only two war crimes trials had been completed in the Bosnian Serb entity of the country. By comparison, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina—the other entity in Bosnia, mainly inhabited by Bosnian Muslims and Croats—had tried more than fifty cases by that date, including more than a dozen involving defendants from the dominant ethnic group in the location in question. Serbia and Montenegro during the same period carried out thirteen trials, all but one involving Serb defendants. Croatia has conducted a large number of trials on war crimes charges, including a dozen trials involving Croat defendants.3 (The experience of domestic war crime prosecutions in the region is discussed below, at the end of the section entitled Importance of War Crimes Prosecutions in Republika Srpska.) The prosecution of war crimes in Bosnia’s domestic courts is the subject of several reviews by Bosnian agencies involved in the criminal justice system. The process is being led by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC), a national agency with responsibility for evaluating the work of prosecutors and judges in Bosnia. On November 28, 2005, representatives of the HJPC, ministries of justice and the chief prosecutors at both national and entity level formed a working group to assess the necessary number of prosecutors in the prosecutorial offices and to propose the necessary structural changes.4 On the same day, the HJPC established another working group to assess the overall ability of the courts and prosecutorial offices to effect war crimes prosecutions.5 Both working groups are presided over by Marinko Jurcevic, the Chief Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [1] In December 2005, the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo assessed the number of war-related deaths during the Bosnian war at 102,000, following a four-year survey financed by the Norwegian government. See “Sarajevo Researcher Says 99,000 Killed in Bosnian War” (text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA), December 17, 2005, [online] http://www.csees.net/?page=news&news_id=48664&country_id=2 (retrieved December 30, 2005) (the 99,000 figure in the article’s title refers to the number of deaths established by December 2005, but the researchers assessed that the figure would reach 102,000 at the completion of the survey). A demographics expert working for the ICTY and her colleague had earlier arrived at a figure of 102,622. See Ewa Tabeau & Jacub Bijak, “War-related Deaths in the 1992–1995 Armed Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent Results,” European Journal of Population, June 2005, p. 206. [2] See website of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Indictments and Proceedings, at http://www.un.org/icty (retrieved February 23, 2005). The figure includes indictments against persons who later died and a number against low-level suspects that the Prosecutor decided not to pursue, on resource grounds. [3] According to the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), which monitors war crime proceedings throughout the former Yugoslavia, from 1996 to January 2005 fifty-four cases, against ninety-four defendants, reached trial stage in Bosnia. All but two trials took place in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina – Human Rights Department, “War Crimes Trials Before the Domestic Courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Progress and Obstacles,” March 2005, p. 6. More than 800 persons were tried in Croatia between 1991 and 2003, many in the absence of the accused. Human Rights Watch interview with Petar Puliselic, Croatian Deputy State Prosecutor, Zagreb, April 16, 2004. In Serbia and Montenegro, nine war crimes trials had been completed by the end of 2003. OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro, “War Crimes Before Domestic Courts,” October 2003, pp. 10-14. Four new trials started in 2004-05. [4] Human Rights Watch interview with Branko Peric, Head of High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, December 15, 2005. [5] Ibid.
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