WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Hina) - The trial in Bosnia of Dominik Ilijasevic, a Bosnian Croat commander accused of war crimes against Bosnian Muslims, shows flaws in efforts by courts in the former Yugoslavia to prosecute war crimes, Human
Rights Watch said on Friday.
WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Hina) - The trial in Bosnia of Dominik Ilijasevic,
a Bosnian Croat commander accused of war crimes against Bosnian
Muslims, shows flaws in efforts by courts in the former Yugoslavia to
prosecute war crimes, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. #L#
The trial of the commander of Bosnian Croat "Maturice" units, who is
accused of war crimes against Muslim civilians in central Bosnia,
including the killing of 38 Muslims in the village of Stupni Do in
October 1993, started before a court in Zenica in 2002. Ilijasevic was
tried and acquitted on the same charges by a court in Mostar in 1995,
but the Supreme Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina quashed the verdict and
ordered a retrial.
HRW identifies the following problems in the trial: poor case
preparation, witness protection problems, inadequate mechanisms for
cooperation with other countries in the region, and lack of clear
rules to allow the use of evidence gathered by the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Ilijasevic's trial is one of a dozen war crimes trials that are being
conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina and HRW sees its flaws as basic
problems accompanying war crimes trials in all former Yugoslav
countries.
The ICTY's growing willingness to transfer cases to national courts in
order to wrap up its mandate by 2010 underlines the importance of
judicial efficiency in the area of the former Yugoslavia, says the New
York-based organisation.
However, the transfer of cases will not be successful if the
international community does not help those courts conduct trials in a
credible manner, said Rachel Denber, acting HRW executive director for
Europe and Central Asia.
HRW recommends a number of measures to improve the quality of war
crimes trials, including pre-trial case review to establish whether
there is sufficient evidence against the defendant, change of court
rules to enable the use of witness statements given to the ICTY,
better cooperation among courts in former Yugoslav countries, and
better witness protection.
(Hina) rml