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Serge Brammertz. Photo: EPA/ROBIN UTRECHT.

Serge Brammertz told a conference in Zagreb on Tuesday that former Yugoslav states are cooperating poorly on prosecuting war criminals and that officials are not interested in condemning the crimes committed in the 1990s.

“The unfortunate fact is that the situation is bad, and it has been regressing for a few years – in terms of state prosecution of war criminals and regional cooperation,” Brammertz told the conference entitled ‘Justice after The Hague’, organised by the NGO Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past.

“Every time I get to the region I am shocked by the difference between the approaches of officials who are unwilling to show interest in condemning war crimes and the desperate situation of victims,” he added.

In Zagreb, the chief Hague prosecutor also met Croatian Justice Minister Drazen Bosnjakovic and Chief State Attorney Drazen Jelenic to discuss war crimes processing in Croatia and regional judicial cooperation in war crimes cases.

Brammertz spoke with Bosnjakovic about the growing numbers of trials held in Croatia with the defendants absent, an informed source told BIRN.

According to Documenta’s annual report, most criminal proceedings in 2017 were conducted in the absence of the defendants.

“Therefore, the basic postulate of any contemporary criminal procedure which must seek to ensure the effective participation of the defendant, the adversarial structure of the proceedings and the equality of arms of the parties involved in the proceedings, has been essentially compromised,” Dokumenta said in the report.

BIRN’s source said that Brammertz also spoke with Bosnjakovic about the Croatian Justice Ministry hiring the Croatian Academy of Law to produce a study analysis on the first-instance and second-instance verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the case against former Bosnian Croat political and military officials Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric, Berislav Pusic and Slobodan Praljak.

The purpose of the analysis is to consider the possibility of contesting the final verdict, the Justice Ministry has said.

Brammertz and Bosnjakovic also discussed the case of Branimir Glavas, a 1990s Croatian general, right-wing political party leader and MP in the Croatian parliament who is being retried for war crimes, BIRN’s source said.

Documenta has claimed that the Zagreb court has been clearing the way to acquit Glavas by separating his case from the case against five of his subordinates.

Other issues such as missing persons were also discussed at the meeting, according to the Justice Ministry.

Read more:

Poor Cooperation Leaves Balkan War Crime Suspects at Large

BIRN Conference Highlights War Crimes Cooperation Problems

Slobodan Praljak: Defending Himself by Distorting History

Branimir Glavas, Croatia’s Luckiest War Crimes Defendant