The head of the Documenta NGO, Vesna Terselic, said on Friday that the Office of the Chief State Prosecutor (DORH) should establish a separate, specialised department for war crimes just as the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (Uskok) had done, for the sake of more efficient prosecution of war crimes.

Presenting a report on war crimes trials in 2017 and the status and rights of victims, Terselic said that last year Documenta followed only 23 trials, the fewest since it started monitoring such trials.

A legal team of Documenta, the Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights from Osijek and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in 2017 followed 23 war crimes cases at four county courts as well as 12 public hearings in appeals proceedings before the Supreme Court.

“Ten trial court and 12 final verdicts were delivered, but when we compare the number of cases and hearings in Croatia and in neighbouring countries – Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina – we see that Croatia, which used to set an example to others in some cases, such as prosecution according to command responsibility, is now lagging behind,” said Terselic.

“We therefore propose that the Justice Ministry start the process of evaluation of the last legislative set from 2011, when four courts and public prosecutor’s offices at county level were entrusted with war crimes prosecution, because the slowdown is worrying,” said Terselic.

She added that DORH should set up a team for war crimes and that its budget should be increased.

Terselic said that the Judicial Academy should again organise professional education for public prosecutors and judges because trial chambers currently comprised judges who had never tried war crimes.

Documenta has said that based on its monitoring of war crimes trials, it has concluded that victims’ rights are not fully respected, and that, during main hearings, they are acquainted only with their rights regarding compensation claims, while being only sporadically informed of the possibilities following the trial, their right to legal counsel or the right to have the final verdicts delivered to them.

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