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Improving Cooperation by Agreements

Barisa Colak

26 February 2010  Ministers of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia sign an agreement making it possible for individuals who have been sentenced by second instance verdicts to serve their sentences in one of the two countries.

In Belgrade today, Barisa Colak, Minister of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Snezana Malovic, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Serbia, signed  two bilateral agreements that will regulate the admission and execution of court decisions pertaining to criminal cases and strengthen legal assistance in civil and criminal suits.

Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia expressed hopes that the agreements would contribute to better cooperation between the two countries. Colak said they could help avoid conducting parallel investigations in the two countries and avoid issuing international warrants against fugitives.

Malovic said that about 150 individuals who were sentenced by second instance verdicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia had fled to one or other of the two countries after their sentences had been pronounced.

As stated in an announcement issued by the Ministry of Justice of Serbia, the changes and amendments to the Agreement on Execution of Court Decisions in Criminal Cases will make it possible for individuals sentenced in one country to serve their sentences in a country whose citizenship they have or in which they reside, "irrespective of what the sentence is or whether they have given their consent".

As stated by Colak, the place of residence and citizenship will have a significant impact on processing individuals charged with grave violations of human rights during the course of the past war.  

He said the Agreement on Execution of Sentences would make it possible for Ilija Jurisic to serve his sentence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, once a second instance verdict has been pronounced.

At the end of September 2009 Jurisic was sentenced, by a first instance verdict pronounced by the District Court in Belgrade, to 12 years in prison for use of "unallowable combat means" during the course of the attack on the convoy of the 92nd Motorized Brigade with the Yugoslav National Army, JNA, in Tuzla on May 15, 1992.

Jurisic was arrested at "Nikola Tesla" airport in Belgrade in May 2007. He has citizenships of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia.

At the beginning of February 2010 Bosnia and Herzegovina signed changes to the Agreement on Mutual Execution of Court Decisions in Criminal Cases with representatives of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Croatia.