Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina Imposes First Sentence

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has sentenced Nedjo Samardzic, a Bosnian Serb, to 13 years in prison, the first verdict and sentence imposed by the court, which was established in 2005 to reduce the ICTY’s workload by taking responsibility for prosecuting less serious cases. Samardzic was found guilty of imprisoning, torturing, and raping civilians in Muslim villages near Foca, the site of some of the worst atrocities during the war. Samardzic joined the Bosnian Serb army in 1992 after escaping from prison, where he was serving a sentence for murder. The prosecutor intends to appeal the sentence, which he — along with Female Victims of the War, a Bosnian association of rape victims — believes is too lenient.

Samardzic’s case has been controversial from the beginning, because it — along with the trial of Radovan Stankovic, the first indictee transferred by the ICTY to Bosnia — was closed to the public for reasons that turned out to be largely pretextual:

The state prosecutors said the trials needed to be held in private in order to protect the identity and freedom of the female witnesses due to testify about their ordeals.

But it has emerged that some witnesses actually asked for a public trial.

“One witness was only 14 at the time when she was raped, and she doesn’t want to be a protected witness,” said Mirsada Tabakovic, of the association Women Victims of War.

“She decided to face the criminal and to do this without any protection.”

The state prosecutor’s office also argued that the witnesses might reveal to the public names of alleged perpetrators of crimes who still had not been indicted.

The War Crimes Chamber accepted these arguments and decided to hold the
trials in private.

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The decision has caused particular shock because the ICTY has never fully closed a trial to the public since it started sessions in 1996.

“There is the possibility of holding a trial in a closed room when it involves rape victims,” Aleksandra Milenov, ICTY spokesperson, explained.

“But these trials are only partly closed to public. A whole trial, definitely not.”

Mirsada Tabakovic, of Women Victims of War, is equally unhappy with the chamber’s action.

“We wanted to attend, believing that by doing so, we would give support to the women witnesses in the courtroom,” Tabakovic told Justice Report. “It’s easier for them when we are there.”