The chief prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (RMCT), Serge Brammertz, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Croatia seemed to be pursuing justice only for Croatian victims.

According to the press release on the UN website, Brammmertz accused the Croatian government of “taking political decisions to block the justice process.”

Today “there is a widespread impression that — in that country — there is the will to pursue justice for Croatian victims, but not for those of other ethnicities.”

Against that backdrop, the prosecutor urged Croatia “to send all pending requests for assistance currently blocked by the Ministry of Justice to relevant judicial authorities and encourage them to urgently process those requests.”

“In the former Yugoslavia, the most significant issue remains regional judicial cooperation, where both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are experiencing severe difficulties obtaining cooperation from Croatia,” according to this Belgian jurist who said that in the past decade Croatia had been the leader in strengthening regional legal cooperation in tackling war crimes, however, it now seems to be caring only for Croatian victims.

Croatia’s Ambassador rejects Brammertz’s criticism

Rejecting some of the Prosecutor’s negative qualifications regarding Croatia’s bilateral cooperation, Croatian Ambassador to the UN, Ivan Simonovic, stressed that “meaningful cooperation is not a one-way process.”

For years, Croatia has been waiting for Serbia’s response to an invitation to finalize the draft of a bilateral agreement on processing war crimes. Instead, Serbia is initiating politicized criminal proceedings against Croatian citizens that are at odds with international standards of universal jurisdiction, said Simonovic.

“Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina should press to more effectively implement the bilateral agreement on cooperation in war crimes matters and reduce the backlog in responding to requests for mutual legal assistance,” Simonovic said according to the press release on the UN website.

Another important area of regional cooperation is tracing missing persons.  Determining the fate of 1,839 still‑missing Croatian citizens is a long‑standing priority.

“It is deeply disappointing that crucial information is still not shared,” the ambassador underscored.