News
ACTING CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE BIH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE AND THE ICTY CHIEF PROSECUTOR HAVE A JOINT WORKING MEETING AND ALSO MEET WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF WAR CRIMES’ VICTIMS FROM ALL REGIONS OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
16.05.2017. 15:31Acting Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ms. Gordana Tadić, and the ICTY/MICT Chief Prosecutor, Mr. Serge Brammertz, have met with the representatives of associations of victims of all ethnicities from all regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor remain open for cooperation with victims’ families, in an open conversation and direct meetings, as this is a particularly sensitive category of population and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose family members have suffered severe and indelible consequences of the committed war crimes.
Representatives of victims have had an opportunity to convey to the officials of the two respective Prosecutor’s Offices messages from their local communities, which mostly pertained to the need to prosecute individuals responsible for the crimes committed, and to pointing out the need to undertake activities aimed at finding and identifying missing persons.
The meeting has been attended by a number of Prosecutors from the Special Department for War Crimes working on the cases which refer to specific regions, so that they could provide answers to specific questions asked by the representatives of the victims’ associations.
Acting Chief Prosecutor, Ms. Gordana Tadić, has informed the representatives of victims about the work of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina on war crimes cases and about the activities of amending the National War Crimes Strategy, in which the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is involved, as well as about other activities which are being conducted in order to create conditions for a more expedient work on war crimes cases in the period to follow.
Apart from this meeting with the representatives of the victims’ population, a working meeting of the Acting Chief Prosecutor Gordana Tadić and the ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz has also been held, where important issues of war crimes cases prosecution, both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the region, have been discussed, along with the issue of overcoming the difficulties occurring in the prosecution of such cases in practice.
This announcement does not prejudice the outcome of the criminal proceedings and does not violate the principle of the presumption of innocence. A person shall be considered innocent of a crime until guilt has been established by a final verdict (Article 3, paragraph 1 of the CPC BiH).