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\nJustice Minister Slobodan Kova\u010d said: ‘Believe me, I don\u2019t have that information. It would be good if I did, but I don\u2019t have it.’ He called it ‘interesting’ and suggested that the clerk of the Court of BiH would know.<\/p>\n
‘We, unfortunately, do not have that information and we can\u2019t help you’ Nina Brankovi\u0107, a spokeswoman for the court, responded.<\/p>\n
The German embassy in Sarajevo promised to research the question of how many cases had been conducted in that country, but after two weeks still had no answer.<\/p>\n
‘I am positive that somebody has that information, but we do not have it’ Sadikovi\u0107, the professor, said. ‘We don\u2019t have information because our ministries are not developed enough. It is not because the information is secret, it is because people go to work and then go home without doing anything\u2026disorganization of state apparatus is the problem here.’<\/p>\n
The Tribunal was established by a United Nations Security Council resolution in 1993 with a mandate to hold public sessions, give fair treatment to prosecution and defense and to mete out punishments up to life imprisonment. It is expected to close down in 2010, while the War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo is to continue hearing remaining cases using the same rules.<\/p>\n
Germany adopted the idea of universal jurisdiction, allowing its courts to decide all matters involving breach of international laws, even if they didn\u2019t happen in Germany or at the hands of German citizens. Its courts were not bound by the mandates of The Hague or the chamber.<\/p>\n
But Germany later passed an amendment to its code of criminal procedure which advises against the prosecution of such crimes if there is a strong possibility that the offense will be prosecuted before an international court or by the state on whose territory the offense was committed or whose nationality was harmed by it. An attached explanation states: ‘the jurisdiction of third-party states (which exists under international law) must be understood as a subsidiary jurisdiction which should prevent non-punishment, but not otherwise inappropriately interfere with the primary responsible jurisdiction.’<\/p>\n
German prosecutors did pursue the case against Nikola Jorgi\u0107, who was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed near Doboj. He is serving his sentence in Bochum prison in Germany.<\/p>\n
He was arrested in late 1995 in Germany, where he had lived from May of 1969 until early 1992. His wife, Petra, is German. Three of his six children live in Germany.<\/p>\n
His trial in Dusseldorf on 11 counts of genocide and 30 murders lasted nine months.<\/p>\n
‘The accused killed and abused people of his own free will’ Judge Gunter Krantz said. ‘It is beyond doubt for this court that the accused was most deeply involved in these terrible events.’<\/p>\n
In one incident which German prosecutors described, Jorgi\u0107 and an accomplice were said to have opened fire with machine guns on Muslims in the town of Grapska, killing 22.<\/p>\n
At the time of the Jorgi\u0107 case, German prosecutors were investigating 48 people on charges of genocide and other war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and had issued arrest warrants for five suspects believed to be living in Germany. It is not clear what happened with those cases.<\/p>\n
Jorgi\u0107\u2019s lawyers tried to get him turned over to the tribunal in The Hague, but were rejected. Tribunal officials said his name was not in their database, according to Krstan Simi\u0107, a lawyer from Banja Luka who was a member of the defense team.<\/p>\n
Simi\u0107 said it is best for all war crime suspects to be tried by the Tribunal because of its standards for justice and prepared defenses. He is sure Jorgi\u0107 would have gotten a much shorter sentence in Hague.<\/p>\n
‘Omarska Camp near Prijedor was horrible’ he said of the notorious prisoner of war camp, ‘and it is one of the biggest cases, but three guards convicted of war crimes in the camp were sentenced to terms of five, six and seven years.’<\/p>\n
He called the life term Jorgi\u0107 received ‘shocking.’<\/p>\n
Simi\u0107 could not defend Jorgi\u0107 in Dusseldorf because German law requires a German lawyer.<\/p>\n
Jorgi\u0107\u2019s son Mario, in an interview two weeks ago with the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo (CIN), claimed that no defense witnesses could be called because Germany wouldn\u2019t give Bosnians visas and the court also refused to allow testimony through a video link.<\/p>\n
The Jorgi\u0107 case was brought on appeal before the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, which two years ago ordered a new trial. That has never taken place.<\/p>\n
‘He is ill’ the son said about his father, who he visited last month. ‘I guess they are waiting for him to die.’ Jorgi\u0107 has a heart condition and diabetes, according to his son, who said his father was getting decent medical care. He also has a TV in his cell.<\/p>\n
He complained that his father was kept with other German prisoners rather than with foreigners, even though his German work permit and residence visa were taken from him after the trial.<\/p>\n
He is allowed to have only 10 euros at a time, while other convicts have accounts in which they can receive money to buy what they need. He is allowed three packages per year, for his birthday, Christmas and Easter, up to three kilograms and they have to be mailed, not delivered.<\/p>\n
No one has shown any interest in his case, not BiH, nor the Republika Srpska government nor The Hague court, Mario said.<\/p>\n
Just how unaware BiH court officials are about the war crimes trials in EU countries was shown in June 2003 when a cantonal court in Zenica started hearings for four Bosnian Serbs accused of war crimes.<\/p>\n
One of them was Jorgi\u0107, already eight years into his life sentence in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia was set up in The Hague in 1993, and a decade later, the state court of Bosnia and Herzegovina created a special chamber to handle still-remaining cases of war crimes. But during the late 1990s, at least six — but maybe more — accused war criminals from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1352,1429],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-25821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pravosude-en","category-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n