Speaking to reporters this week, ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said that he was concerned by the slow progress, or lack of progress, that courts in BiH have made on cases sent to them by the Hague tribunal.
“Originally we transferred cases against 44 individuals, and for a number of them proceedings have been engaged and for a number there hasn’t been a lot of progress, and in a few really important cases there has been little progress,” said Brammertz.
“I have over the last few years looked at these cases and showed a lot of understanding for the difficulty of the situation. But my level of understanding is shrinking, as I found it very unfortunate that so little progress has been made in relation to the cases I am asking about every six months,” he said.
Brammertz took BiH courts and prosecutors to task for their failure to prosecute rape and sexual violence cases in particular, and for their failure to apply legal principles and precedent consistently to all cases.
