Sources inside the BiH commission charged with protecting witnesses in war crimes cases have told BIRN reporters that witnesses were left unprotected from January through June of 2015. After the BiH Council of Ministers handed the job of protecting witnesses to the newly-created commission, the BiH Court and Prosecutor’s Office waited months to submit the names of members, essentially blocking the commission from taking up its duties.
Dragan Mektic, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s minister of security, said he urged the state court and prosecution to submit their lists of commission members several times. But when the names were finally submitted, there was another wait for the state prosecution to propose a Serb member for the commission.
Mektic added that during the period from January to June, several people who should have been covered by the witness protection programme told him they had no means to support themselves, that their rents abroad had not been paid and that they were in danger.
