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Obstacles to More Effective Prosecutions

War crimes prosecutions in Republika Srpska have been hampered by a range of obstacles. These include: limited prosecutorial resources, including a lack of investigative capacity; the absence of specialist war crimes prosecutors, reflecting both a lack of expertise in humanitarian law and the fact that the mandate of prosecutors is not limited to war crimes cases; insufficient assistance by Republika Srpska police, coupled with a failure to make use of evidence available from other sources; witness intimidation and fatigue; and the non-availability of suspects.

Some of the obstacles described below are beyond the direct influence of the prosecutors in Republika Srpska, and require engagement by the Republika Srpska government, parliament, foreign donors, and other agencies. The role of the prosecutors is nevertheless crucially important.

Supervision of their work, as well as of the judges in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is the task of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council. The HJPC can order various disciplinary measures (including official warnings, salary reduction, demotion, and removal from office) against prosecutors who act with ethnic or religious bias, indolence, or negligence, accept bribes, or commit some other infraction expressly prohibited by the law.⁶⁵ The HJPC is also in charge of deciding the number of prosecutors and law clerks in each cantonal and district prosecutor’s office.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of war crimes prosecutions in Republika Srpska depends on the political will in the Bosnian Serb entity to hold war criminals to account, irrespective of their ethnicity or their position in society. For a long time after the war, wartime abusers and their sympathizers held important positions in the political and economic life of Republika Srpska. Their influence has been greatly reduced by the ICTY trials of the perpetrators of war crimes and the dismissal by the Office of the High Representative of the power-holders who obstructed post-war reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The arrests by Republika Srpska police of two dozen other persons on war crimes charges between October 2004 and December 2005 is also a signal of a change for the good.⁶⁶ However, the progress remains limited, and its sustainability is far from evident.

Limited Prosecutorial Resources

Staffing Limitations

As noted above, Republika Srpska district prosecutors face a caseload of around forty category “A” “sensitive” cases initiated in the Federation and referred to them by the Special Department for War Crimes, some of the thirty-six category “A” “sensitive” cases initiated in Republika Srpska, and a substantial number of cases in which charges had been brought before March 2003 but the ICTY never issued an “A” marking.⁶⁷ (With regard to allegations about war crimes made after March 2003, the Special Department for War Crimes has exclusive jurisdiction to investigate.) The number of prosecutors assigned to war crimes in Republika Srpska is quite limited. The limitation is particularly striking in Trebinje, where two prosecutors (in an office of four) cope with a caseload of more than twenty category “A” cases referred from the Special Department for War Crimes.⁶⁸ Similarly, only one prosecutor works on war crimes in East Sarajevo, where the Special Department for War Crimes referred twelve category “A” cases.⁶⁹ In Banja Luka, which covers Prijedor and other locations in which numerous crimes against non-Serbs occurred during the war, as of November 2005, there was only one prosecutor working on war crimes.⁷⁰ Doboj had three prosecutors assigned to war crime cases, and Bijeljina two such prosecutors as of December.⁷¹ Moreover, all these prosecutors also handled other types of cases. At least in some of the offices, the number of district prosecutors working on war crimes is already inadequate.

Most prosecutors in charge of war crimes prosecutions in Republika Srpska also lack support from law clerks. District prosecutorial offices are permitted to employ law clerks to conduct legal research, screen witness statements in order to select the relevant ones, and generally to assist prosecutors. However, the office of the district prosecutor in Doboj employs only one law clerk, who mainly works on non-war crimes cases.⁷² Similarly, offices in Trebinje and Bijeljina have most recently employed one law clerk each.⁷³ The office in Banja Luka does not have law clerks at all.⁷⁴ The limited number of law clerks is a result of the assessments made two years ago by the HJPC.⁷⁵

Lack of Investigative Capacity

The 2003 criminal procedure code in Bosnia and Herzegovina dispensed with the institution of investigative judge, and the prosecutors’ offices are now responsible for conducting their own investigations. But district prosecutors offices lack specialized investigators, who could  assist prosecutors in refining suspect lists, pursuing leads, interviewing potential witnesses, and establishing the context in which the crimes were committed.⁷⁶ Under the current legislation in Republika Srpska, it is not possible to hire investigators in the prosecutorial offices. Introducing investigators would require amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code.⁷⁷

Experience from specialist war crimes tribunals (including the ICTY and the Special Court for Sierra Leone) suggests that investigators should be an integral part of the prosecutor’s team, located in the office of the prosecutor and in constant communication with the prosecutor.

Some prosecutors working on war crimes rely on a small number of police officers in the regional police centers, but their contribution is no substitute for well-trained investigators. The police officers working with the prosecutors are detached from the prosecutor’s office, and, with the exception of Banja Luka and Bijeljina, they are few in number.⁷⁸  According to the district prosecutors, these officers also work on issues unrelated to war crimes,⁷⁹ although the head of the Working Team for War Crimes Investigations in the Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska claimed the opposite in an interview with Human Rights Watch.⁸⁰ 

Some prosecutors have turned for assistance in investigations to the War Crimes Unit of the Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA).⁸¹ However, the primary responsibility of the War Crimes Unit is to conduct investigations for the Special Department for War Crimes in the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina (see section entitled Significant Number of War Crimes Cases Yet To Be Heard, above, for a description of the caseload of the Special Department for War Crimes).⁸² Moreover, the existing staffing shortage undermines the Unit’s ability to conduct even those investigations effectively.⁸³ 

No Specialist War Crimes Prosecutors

Laws and customs of international humanitarian law (IHL) make up the body of law applied in war crimes prosecutions. Few prosecutors in Republika Srpska have expertise in this area of law. The problem also impacts judges and defense lawyers, although there is a small group of lawyers who have developed experience in IHL by acting on behalf of defendants on trial at the ICTY.

Many prosecutors, lawyers and judges in Republika Srpska also lack familiarity with the jurisprudence of the ICTY, which would help their understanding of humanitarian law. The prosecutors and judges from Republika Srpska have never traveled to the Hague to learn firsthand from their ICTY colleagues about practical issues such as witness protection, or the use of archived wartime materials in prosecutions.⁸⁴

The November 2005 judgment against Drago Radakovic and others by the Banja Luka District Court illustrates this shortcoming. The judgment refers to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an internal armed conflict, without making any reference to the legal reasoning that led the ICTY judges to arrive at the opposite conclusion.⁸⁵  The failure to make reference to ICTY jurisprudence is all the more conspicuous in that the key ICTY decision establishing the international character of the Bosnian war—the Appeals Chamber’s decision in the Tadic case—dealt with crimes in the same part of Bosnia as the Radakovic and others case.⁸⁶

Since the reform of the judiciary in 2004, there have been three rounds of training for judges and prosecutors in Republika Srpska on war crimes issues. The Center for Judicial and Prosecutorial Training in Republika Srpska organized two trainings in 2005. The first seminar, in April, offered a general introduction to war crimes prosecutions. In June 2005 the head of the Special Department for War Crimes in the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina gave a lecture on the new Bosnian legislation related to war crimes.⁸⁷

The third round of training took place in December 2005 and January 2006. Prosecutors and the police took part. Each attendee was offered a five-day training organized by the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) and the interior ministries and training centers from both entities, with the focus on practical issues concerning investigation and some specific aspects of substantive humanitarian law.⁸⁸ 

The nature of the recent training fits with the strategy that the Director of the Center for Judicial and Prosecutorial Training in Republika Srpska described in an interview with Human Rights Watch. According to the director, the focus in the training of judges and prosecutors in 2004 and 2005 was on procedural issues, because an entirely new investigative and trial procedure, akin to that traditionally used in the Anglo-Saxon countries, was introduced into Bosnian legislation (traditionally based on continental law) in 2003. The focus is now shifting to substantive law issues.⁸⁹

Participation in the training has not been universal. One prosecutor involved in war crimes prosecutions told Human Rights Watch that he was so overwhelmed by work that he was missing the seminars.⁹⁰ The prosecutors in Banja Luka who recently amended several indictments for “ordinary” crimes to war crimes indictments did not participate in any of the training sessions.⁹¹ The presiding judge in two of the war crimes trials held so far in Republika Srpska (Jakovljevic and others, and Radakovic and others) told Human Rights Watch that he attended two brief training seminars on war crimes, in which he learned “little.”⁹² 

Human Rights Watch welcomes the current shift in the training of the judges and prosecutors in Republika Srpska to the practical issues concerning investigation and substantive humanitarian law. In the event that additional financial assistance is required to ensure high-quality training, Human Rights Watch urges international donors to provide the necessary funds.  It would be particularly useful to include legal experts from the ICTY as instructors on the range of substantive law issues.

The development of expertise on war crime cases is also impeded by the mandate of district prosecutors. Those district prosecutors in Republika Srpska who work on war crimes cases are also required to prosecute ordinary crimes. The prosecutors in East Sarajevo, Doboj, and Bijeljina dedicate most of their time to cases involving other crimes, and the two prosecutors in the Trebinje office of the prosecutor dedicate roughly equal time to war crimes and other cases.⁹³ 

Special Department for War Crimes as a Potential Model

The most effective way to address these shortcomings would be to increase the number of district prosecutors to enable some prosecutors to work exclusively on war crimes cases, to recruit specialized investigators for each district prosecutors’ office, and to increase recruitment and reliance on law clerks to assist in war crimes prosecutions. This model would roughly resemble the structure now present in the Special Department for War Crimes in the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina.⁹⁴ 

Changes in the structure of Republika Srpska prosecutorial offices are in the hands of both the Bosnian Serb authorities and the authorities in Sarajevo. While the all-Bosnian HJPC decides the number of prosecutors and law clerks to be employed in each specific prosecutorial office, increasing the numbers of personnel requires budgetary approval from the Republika Srpska Ministry of Justice.⁹⁵ The work of the district prosecutors’ offices is currently funded solely from the budget of Republika Srpska.⁹⁶ (By contrast, the Special Department for War Crimes is funded from the national budget and foreign donations.)  There are no legal impediments, however, for donor assistance regarding provision of equipment for the prosecutorial offices in Republika Srpska, with the approval of the HJPC.⁹⁷ Such support would lessen the budgetary burden on the Republika Srpska authorities concerning the prosecutors’ and law clerks’ salaries.

Similarly, making the legislative changes necessary to appoint specialist investigators inside prosecutors’ offices is also a shared responsibility between Republika Srpska and the authorities at the state level. Major changes in the criminal legislation in Bosnia follow a pattern in which a law is first enacted at the state level, and entity parliaments then adopt identical provisions at the entity level. Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina are currently under discussion, and they are expected to be adopted in 2006. According to the head of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is involved in the drafting of the amendments, the changes in the law are likely to create the category of investigators and to engender the same legislative developments in Republika Srpska and the Federation.⁹⁸

Limited Assistance by Republika Srpska Police

Current efforts by the Republika Srpska police to obtain new evidence are mainly focused on the crimes committed against Bosnian Serbs, reflecting the different weight the police attach to the crimes depending on the victims’ ethnicity. As a result, prosecutors are unlikely to receive all the necessary assistance from the police in the investigations transferred from the Special Department for War Crimes, most of which concern crimes against non-Serbs.

The district prosecutors in Republika Srpska admit that the police-generated evidence on war crimes is of limited worth. The crimes committed in the areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs during the war for the most part targeted Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The police material regarding these crimes is scarce. Prosecutors in Doboj and East Sarajevo interviewed by Human Rights Watch were unaware of any existing evidence gathered by the local police about crimes against non-Serbs.⁹⁹ The situation is similar in Gacko, where numerous killings of Muslims occurred during the war.¹⁰⁰ Virtually all mosques in Republika Srpska were destroyed during the war, but prosecutors are not in possession of information that might point to the perpetrators. As the chief prosecutor in Bijeljina told Human Rights Watch, “Nobody has filed criminal charges concerning the destruction of the mosques here. The destructions were considered acts of patriotism.”¹⁰¹ In some towns—most notably Foca and Prijedor—police officers were among the main perpetrators of war crimes.¹⁰²

In those instances in which criminal investigations into crimes against non-Serbs did take place during the war, it was usually at the initiative of the military prosecutor, because the perpetrators, as a rule, belonged to some of the military formations operating in the area.¹⁰³ Civilian police usually carried out the actual investigation, because civilian police expertise was superior to that of the military police.¹⁰⁴

Proper (contemporaneous) police investigations into wartime crimes would have resulted in potentially valuable evidence that could have included: a visual sketch of the crime scene; minutes of the crime scene examination; witness statements; photographic documentation; forensic material from the crime scene, including the location of bullet shells and other material relating to weapons used at the scene; a pathologist’s report; expert opinion on potential weapons, if any, used to commit the crime; and, where relevant, log sheets from the police station or military unit at the time of the commission of the crime.¹⁰⁵ For most wartime crimes committed in Republika Srpska, this evidence does not exist, either because no investigation was conducted, or the investigation was flawed.

It appears that in some parts of Republika Srpska, the police even destroyed compromising documents relating to abuses committed during the war. In Jakovljevic and others, the police in Prijedor are alleged to have destroyed all evidence about the disappearance and murder of the Roman Catholic priest Tomislav Matanovic and his parents.¹⁰⁶ In the police station in Visegrad, where numerous crimes against local Muslims were committed in 1992, police documentation from that period is missing.¹⁰⁷ The head of the special team within the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior, Simo Tusevljak, acknowledged that wartime files were destroyed in some police stations.¹⁰⁸

An overwhelming majority of war crimes cases investigated by Republika Srpska authorities during and after the war related to crimes committed against ethnic Serbs. Even these cases were not properly investigated for the most part. The crimes at issue largely took place in the territories outside the control of the Bosnian Serbs. The investigations were based on statements given to the Bosnian Serb intelligence services and police by Serbs who fled those territories during the war. The main goal of the interviewers was to obtain militarily valuable information, and the issue of war crimes was often only touched upon.¹⁰⁹ As a result, the parts of the statements referring to war crimes rarely exceeded a few sentences and lacked specific information about the identity of the perpetrators or the victims.¹¹⁰ Police files sometimes list numerous names of the purported perpetrators, without describing their acts and specific role in the commission of the crime.¹¹¹ 

Despite the fact that courts in Republika Srpska will from now on mainly try war crimes committed against non-Serbs, the Ministry of Interior continues to focus on obtaining and systematizing evidence about the crimes committed against Serbs, with a view to submitting the evidence to the Special Department for War Crimes in Sarajevo.¹¹² In January 2005, the Ministry established a special working team for this purpose. In December 2005, the website of the Ministry of Interior, in describing the activities of the working team, referred to two dozen crimes, all of which were committed by Bosnian Muslims and Croats.¹¹³ In part, the focus of the ministry is understandable, given that the ICTY and the Bosnian judiciary have made limited progress in adjudicating war crimes against Bosnian Serbs.¹¹⁴ However, maintaining an almost exclusive focus on the crimes committed against ethnic Serbs will seriously limit the capacity of the Republika Srpska police to investigate those crimes against non-Serbs that the Special Department for War Crimes has transferred to Republika Srpska or will do so in the future.

Failure to Make Use of Available Evidence

In the ongoing and future investigations and prosecutions of war crimes, the district prosecutors should make use of valuable sources of evidence which they have so far ignored. These sources include information gathered by nongovernmental organizations, and ICTY transcripts and other material.

Information Gathered by NGOs

A number of nongovernmental organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina have developed valuable expertise and databases concerning war crimes. For example, the Research and Documentation Center, a leading NGO in Sarajevo, recently compiled a list of all casualties of the Bosnian war, corroborated by detailed information on numerous victims and perpetrators. The Center’s search-engine provides instant access to this information, and it could significantly facilitate the work of prosecutors in charge of war crimes prosecutions.¹¹⁵ 

The Association of Women-Victims of War provides an example of positive cooperation with war crimes prosecutors. The organization includes hundreds of women, mainly from eastern parts of the country, who were victims of rape and other war crimes. In October and November 2005, the NGO facilitated the participation of rape victims in the trial against Momir Skakavac, at the district court in Trebinje, following repeated trips of the district prosecutor to Sarajevo to meet with the victims. The association has also submitted a number of affidavits (witness testimonies) to the Special Department for War Crimes in the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina.¹¹⁶ 

Unfortunately, however, the efforts of the Trebinje prosecutor in this case are a notable exception. District prosecutors in Republika Srpska admitted to Human Rights Watch that they have not developed interaction with the organizations that may have useful information about war crimes.¹¹⁷ When asked whether he made use of the information gathered by NGOs, one prosecutor told Human Rights Watch, “I am not in the position to look for them. They should contact me, with the information they have.”¹¹⁸ 

The problem is compounded by the fact that many organizations do not see cooperation with prosecutorial offices as a natural adjunct to their efforts. The head of Izvor, a leading NGO in Prijedor dedicated to finding missing persons, was unfamiliar with the name and activities of the prosecutor in charge of investigating war crimes in the Prijedor area.¹¹⁹ 

ICTY Transcripts and Other Material

Witness statements and other evidence accumulated by the ICTY offer a vast reservoir of useful information for the district prosecutors. The district courts are likely to deal in the future with many crimes which have already been adjudicated in the Hague, with high- and mid-level superiors as the defendants. In these cases, the district courts will try immediate perpetrators and low-level officers who were also involved in the wrongdoing.

Prosecutions of crimes which the Hague tribunal has not addressed would also benefit from the evidence in the ICTY’s possession. This evidence includes original police and military documents, or their certified copies, seized by the international NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) during raids on the Republika Srpska intelligence agency in 2003.¹²⁰ 

Regrettably, the district prosecutors have so far made no use of ICTY material. Part of the explanation for this is practical: prosecutors do not possess the hard copies of the documents and do not have access to the electronic database of the ICTY. In contrast, prosecutors in the Special Department for War Crimes in the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina possess “keys” [passwords] which allow them access to the database of the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor.¹²¹ According to the Bosnian Chief Prosecutor:

District prosecutors working on war crimes should also have access to the database. My office could mediate between the prosecutors and the Hague, we could ask the ICTY for an additional number of “keys.” However, I need to have the requests from the prosecutors first. I have not received such requests, or requests for hard copies.¹²²

All ICTY judgments and non-confidential trial transcripts are already available to the prosecutors, because they are posted on the ICTY website. However, district prosecutors interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they lacked the ability or time to consult this material. One prosecutor told Human Rights Watch that he does not have time “to even think about it.”¹²³ Another complained about the lack of time and resources, including absence of translators.¹²⁴ One prosecutor did not even have a computer when Human Rights Watch conducted the research for this report in November 2005.¹²⁵ These concerns underscore the importance of district prosecutors’ offices making use of legal clerks to assist with case preparation for war crimes prosecutions.

The use of ICTY material is an area in which far-reaching changes are both essential and possible. A precondition for this is that the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council and the Republika Srpska authorities ensure that prosecutors have additional support staff and access to information technology. This staff should include individuals trained in the use of computers and software such as ZyLAB, a program used by the ICTY that allows fast full-text search through a large amount of documents.¹²⁶ The Special Department for War Crimes and offices of district prosecutors in Republika Srpska should agree on the modalities of the use of the ICTY material to which the Special Department for War Crimes has access. The Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina could also facilitate contact between the district prosecutors and the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor, to enable local prosecutors to obtain ICTY material for use in prosecutions before district courts.

Witness Intimidation and Fatigue

Effective prosecutions in war crimes trials depends heavily on the availability of credible witnesses, which in turn requires that witnesses are confident that they can testify truthfully without fear of retribution. Achieving accountability through national war crimes trials therefore requires measures to protect witnesses prior to, during, and after trials. In some cases, effective witness protection requires a long-term witness protection program or resettlement in another country.

There is little confirmed information about witness intimidation in war crimes trials in Republika Srpska, probably as a result of the limited number of trials. But experience from other parts of the former Yugoslavia suggests that witness intimidation regularly accompanies war crimes trials.¹²⁷ 

Although Republika Srpska has adopted legislation on witness protection, the government has not devised any witness protection program.¹²⁸ One prosecutor admitted to Human Rights Watch, “I would not know how to implement provisions of the law pertaining to witness protection.”¹²⁹ District courts lack technical equipment allowing for the use of protective measures during the testimony, such as video link, or equipment to disguise the voice or conceal the face of a witness.¹³⁰ 

The State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina does have the necessary equipment for application of protective measures during witness testimony. Creating similar capacities in the district courts would not require enormous funding (donor support from the international community could help). In the meantime, district and cantonal courts should be able to make use of the existing State Court facilities, where appropriate (for example, to hear testimony of witnesses who live abroad, via video link).

Even if all legal and technical prerequisites facilitating the participation of the witnesses were in place, other hurdles would limit the capacity of the prosecutors to make the best use of witnesses. More than a decade after the crimes were committed, many witnesses have left the country or have died.¹³¹ Others have lost the motivation to testify, for a variety of reasons: because they have already testified on numerous occasions in the past;¹³² because they have returned to their pre-war place of residence and do not want to risk their well-being by testifying against members of the local majority;¹³³ or, as one witness told Human Rights Watch, “I don’t want to remember the horrible events.”¹³⁴ 

Although the described problems are real, their extent should not be exaggerated. Some district prosecutors said that they did not face a problem of witnesses’ being unwilling to testify.¹³⁵ One prosecutor, after listing a series of reasons why it is difficult to ensure witness cooperation, acknowledged that witnesses from the Federation nevertheless responded to her summons to give statements during the investigation.¹³⁶ Most victims and victims groups’ representatives interviewed by Human Rights Watch stated that, in principle, they would be willing to contribute to investigations and trials.¹³⁷ 

One witness, from a village near Zvornik, explained:

All of us, women who lost our husbands, fathers, or sons, are willing to testify about it, even if the trial took place in Bijeljina. We have returned to Republika Srpska, but that cannot deter us from testifying. Maybe those who did not lose anybody in the close family aren’t always willing to testify, but we are.¹³⁸

However, the motivation of witnesses to assist the prosecution does not relieve the prosecutors and the courts of the obligation to ensure the safety and well-being of witnesses during and after their testimony. In particular, the prosecutors and judges should receive training on the treatment of vulnerable witnesses.

Non-Availability of Suspects

Domestic war crimes prosecutions in Bosnia are increasingly hampered by the fact that suspects and accused are living outside Bosnia. This problem is particularly acute where the person has citizenship of a country which does not permit the extradition of its nationals. A number of Bosnian Serbs and Croats, including war crimes suspects, have moved to Serbia and Croatia respectively in recent years and received citizenship there, and they are thus protected from extradition back to Bosnia for trial. Other suspects were already citizens of Croatia or of the (post-1992) Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (predecessor of the current Serbia and Montenegro) at the time of the crimes, and are similarly protected from extradition. The absence of suspects from Bosnia, beyond the reach of police and prosecutors, even prevents the issuing of indictments: under legislation adopted in 2003, an indictment cannot be issued unless the suspect has been interviewed.¹³⁹ 

This problem already affects district prosecutors in Republika Srpska, and it is set to increase as the investigations into the cases referred through the Special Department for War Crimes advance. For example, Bosnian Croats are the suspects in most of the ongoing investigations in Doboj, where the district prosecutor in charge of war crimes prosecutions has investigated crimes committed along the border with Croatia. Two-thirds of the suspects, according to the prosecutor, have left Bosnia for Croatia and obtained Croatian citizenship.¹⁴⁰ The prosecutor in Banja Luka is facing a similar problem with respect to investigations into the crimes against Bosnian Serbs in Kozarska Dubica and Mrkonjic Grad. Croatian Army units were responsible for those crimes, and the prosecutor working on the cases predicts that the trials will eventually be held in Croatia.¹⁴¹ 

The problem of the non-availability of the accused is analyzed in more detail in the recent Human Rights Watch report on the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.¹⁴² The report recommends that the Bosnian authorities allow the transfer of proceedings to Croatia and to Serbia and Montenegro, linked to an obligation by the authorities in Croatia and in Serbia and Montenegro to provide specific guarantees to facilitate participation of Bosnian witnesses in proceedings. This could include, for example, providing witnesses with the option of giving testimony through a video link in every case transferred by the Bosnian authorities. Nevertheless, the logistics of maintaining close cooperation between authorities where a case has been transferred to ensure a fair and effective trial can be, in some instances, very complex. This is one of the reasons why Human Rights Watch urges that in the longer term the authorities in Croatia and in Serbia and Montenegro abolish the existing ban on the extradition of nationals. Further, conducting a war crimes trial in the jurisdiction where the offense was committed offers an important opportunity for victims to see justice being done.