The BiH Prosecutor’s recent indictment of wartime Bosniak commander Naser Oric has drawn criticism from all sides in BiH. Many observers see the indictment as a cynical maneuver by judicial officials, intended to disprove and defuse Republika Srpska’s claims that the BiH Court and Prosecutor are biased against Serbs. Those claims are a driving force behind the RS’s planned referendum on BiH institutions, and behind the EU-sponsored judiciary reform process. The BiH Court and Prosecutor will be under increased scrutiny as the next sessions of the Structured Dialogue approach.
Serb critics of Oric’s prosecution point out that Oric is being charged in connection with three killings in 1992, while investigators and researchers have implicated him in hundreds of potential war crimes.
Finally, Oric’s attorneys point out that he has already been tried and acquitted of similar charges by the ICTY in the Hague.
Mladen Grujicic, the president of a Bosnian Serb victims’ group called the Organisation of Families of the Captured, Killed Fighters and Missing Civilians of Srebrenica, told BIRN that he has mixed feelings about Oric’s indictment.
“I am happy that he was charged, this could be a start [of the process of revealing] the truth, but I am deeply saddened that he was charged with such a small number of deaths. There is evidence linking Oric to much bigger crimes,” said Grujicic.
The Bosnian investigation into Oric was begun by the district prosecution in Bijeljina, a town in the country’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, but was taken over by the state-level prosecution six years ago because of its “sensitive nature”.
