Kojic: Prosecutor’s Office discriminatory, biased

BANJALUKA – Milorad Kojic – Head of the Srpska Centre for Research of War, War Crimes and Missing Persons warned on Friday that the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is discriminatory, biased, and disinterested in the prosecution of high-ranking military, police and political officials suspected of crimes against the Serbs.

“There is also the problem of the qualification of criminal offences. Namely the Bosniaks have been charged with individual responsibility while the Serbs with the most severe crimes – crime against humanity and genocide,” Milorad Kojic told Srna.

Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Boris Grubesic gives blanket assessments and misinforms the public by saying that the judicial institution issued more than 80 indictments for crimes against the Serbs, says Kojic.

“According to the Centre’s information, since June 2013, the total of 75 people has been charged with crimes against the Serbs. Only 55 were directly indicted for their crimes, while 20 others had indictments issued against them for the crimes against the Serbs and Croats or the Serbs and Bosniaks in the former Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia,” said Kojic.

During that period, 172 Serbs were indicted, including 104 for crimes against the Bosniaks, while only 37 Bosniaks were indicted for crimes against the Serbs, of which 10 cases were transferred for prosecution at the cantonal level, noted Kojic.

“The BiH Prosecutor’s Office is trying to present data statistically, and that data is not true. The institution has employed some new prosecutors and now has 35 of them, but it is alarming that they handle less complex cases in order to satisfy the statistics, which is not in compliance with the National War Crimes Strategy, which defines that the institution should deal with the most complex cases,” said Kojic. He asked if anyone would bear the consequences because of this.

Kojic asserted that less complex cases should be referred to the entity judicial institutions.