OFFICIALS FROM THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE OF BiH MET WITH WINPRO PROJECT REPRESENTATIVES

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ozrenka Nešković and Deputy Head of Special Department for War Crimes Izet Odobašić met with representatives from the WINPRO Project the activities of which are focused on witness protection and witness support issues.

The WINPRO III Project representatives Mr Joe Fleming, Project Leader, and Mr Mark Gilmore, a former Northern Ireland Police Director, visited the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH and talked with officials from it about activities carried out in the area of witness protection, as well as about capacities available to the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH in this segment.

The said project is implemented within IPA activities aimed at bringing Bosnia and Herzegovina closer to European integrations, and the full name of the project is ‘Cooperation in Criminal Justice: Strengthening Witness Protection in the Fight against Organized Crime, Terrorism and Corruption’ (WINPRO III).

The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has an Investigation and Witness Support Section, as the area of witness protection is a very important segment in the fight against the most difficult forms of crime and considering that at least one or more protected witnesses are listed in indictments of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH in almost every more complex case.

For example, out of the total number of witnesses heard in the courtroom in war crime cases (more than 9,000 of them), around 15% of them testified with some of the protection measures granted to them.