Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told reporters that he would likely be filing a “very critical” report to the UN Security Council if prosecutors in BiH fail to meet a year-end deadline for dealing with war crimes cases. The BiH Prosecutor’s Office was obligated to conclude its investigations of war crimes cases transferred to BiH from the ICTY by the end of 2015, but many of those cases have not yet been properly dealt with.
“Over the last two years, my reports to the UN Security Council were very critical because I got a lot of promises but always unfortunately not much progress was seen,” [Brammertz] said.
“It is difficult to say how many cases are still open. At the start, cases concerning 40 persons were transferred, some of them including several accused, some concerning one accused,” he recalled.
“In some, there has been partial progress, while in some there was no progress, so it is difficult to give figures, but at the end of the year I will have all the data,” Brammertz said.
Mr. Brammertz said that the deadline established by the BiH war crimes strategy would obviously not be met. He also questioned the “commitment” of BiH prosecutors.
