This week’s announcement that the BiH Prosecutor’s Office has suddenly shut down its investigation of 455 persons for war crimes against Serbs deepens suspicions that the institution fails to give Serb victims equal treatment. The BiH Prosecutor’s Office said it had stopped the investigations into Bosniaks’ war crimes against Serbs at the prison camps of Silos Tarcin, Krupa, Igman, Hrasnica, and the May 9 Elementary School—camps at which more than 600 persons died.
BiH prosecutor Behaija Krnjic’s abrupt decision to halt these investigations is particularly questionable because she made it just days after taking over the investigations from her predecessor. It strains credulity to think that a prosecutor could—in just a few days—take over the investigations of 455 persons, analyze the extensive evidentiary records, and make a good-faith decision to shut them all down.
Unfortunately, this decision is only the latest apparent example of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office’s reluctance to seek justice for Serb victims. A 2012 analysis of BiH war crimes prosecutions (available at pp 24-34 of the RS’s Eighth Report to the UN Security Council) reveals a pronounced disparity in the BiH judicial system’s treatment of crimes against Bosniaks and crimes against Serbs.
The BiH Prosecutor’s Office’s lack of regard for Serb victims is evident in its failure to convict—or even prosecute—the perpetrators of some of the most heinous crimes committed during the war. For example, BiH has not prosecuted a single member of the famously sadistic El Mujahid Detachment—which the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found routinely murdered Serbs—or a single army officer with responsibility over the detachment.
If a justice institution is to be recognized as legitimate, it needs to consistently act with professionalism and impartiality. This is especially true in a country where ethnic divisions are an unfortunate fact of life. Moreover, the need to earn pubic legitimacy is particularly strong with respect to an institution like the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, which lacks a constitutional basis and was imposed on BiH by a foreign High Representative.
RS Interior Minister Stanislav Čađo has filed a complaint with the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, asking that the investigations resume. The BiH Prosecutor should reinstate the investigations and fully explain the circumstances under which they were halted.
