SARAJEVO: Bosnia and Croatia yesterday reached an accord to cooperate in prosecuting war crimes, aimed at bringing to court dozens of suspects who have evaded justice.
“We estimate that the accord will apply to some 50 war crime cases,” Bosnian general attorney Goran Salihovic told reporters.
His Croatian counterpart Mladen Bajic explained that the accord refers to war crime suspects who had obtained both Croatian and Bosnian citizenship and have fled from the country looking for them into the neighbouring state to avoid prosecution.
Neither Croatia nor Bosnia could extradite their citizens to another country and the fugitives have so far hidden behind that regulation, almost 18 years after the end of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and the 1991-1995 conflict in Croatia.
According to the agreement, “several dozen suspects” wanted by Bosnia will be tried in Croatia if they refuse to come back to the home country, a spokesman of Bosnia’s prosecution office, Boris Grubesic said.
The accord anticipates an exchange of information and evidence between prosecutors in the two countries, which will allow further prosecution of the suspects in the country where they have found shelter, Bajic said.
In January Bosnia “signed a similar protocol with Serbia and it has already been implemented,” he said.
The inter-ethnic war in Bosnia claimed some 100,000 lives and some two million refugees and displaced persons, almost half of the former Yugoslav republic’s pre-war population.
Croatia’s 1991 proclamation of independence from the Yugoslav federation triggered a war between Zagreb forces and Belgrade-backed ethnic Serbs, who opposed the move. The conflict claimed some 20,000 lives and hundreds of thousands refugees.
AFP
