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Targeting Fugitives’ Family Finances

19 October 2007  

Bosnian observers react with suspicion to new pressure on local officials to target the finances of relatives of top war crimes suspects still at large.

By Erna Mackic and Merima Husejnovic in Sarajevo

Mounting pressure from the international community on Bosnian officials to freeze the assets and business dealings of family members suspected of supporting top war crimes fugitives in their flight from the authorities has met with a cool reaction from local legal experts, activists and victims’ groups.

International officials – most prominently, the principle Deputy High Representative in Bosnia Raffi Gregorian – want to see broader implementation of a 2006 law allowing for such moves, as part of a last-ditch effort to apprehend four men still on the run from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague 12 years after the Bosnian war came to an end.

While the Hague court has long been scheduled to wind down its work over the next few years, observers say its mission will not be successful if key indictees – including the wartime Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic and army chief Ratko Mladic, both charged with genocide – remain at large.

The proposed financial pressure would likely focus on relatives of the fugitives who have been blacklisted by the international community on suspicion of providing them with support.

While there is broad agreement that this could speed up long-awaited arrests, some experts question the legality of targeting individuals who have never been formally convicted of any wrongdoing. Victims’ groups and activists have also expressed scepticism about the proposals, with some viewing them as little more than an empty gesture in lieu of any genuine effort to apprehend the fugitives.

Besides Karadzic and Mladic, the other two men who remain on the run from Hague prosecutors are the Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic, accused of crimes in Croatia, and Stojan Zupljanin, a wartime politician in the autonomous Serb-run Krajina region in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The ICTY’s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte says Karadzic and Zupljanin are hiding in BiH, while Mladic and Hadzic are believed to be in Serbia.

Under existing legislation in BiH, the property of ICTY indictees who go on the run can be frozen and their business dealings can be halted.

The same applies in any case where officials have a “grounded suspicion” that a person is helping an indictee to evade justice.

In this regard, the legislation in question explicitly lists “spouses or consensual partners, first line blood relatives, brothers or sisters, adopting parents or adopted children and their spouses or consensual partners, attorney, medical doctor or priest”.

Most close family members of the ICTY fugitives have already been added to blacklists, drawn up by the United States and later endorsed by the European Union, of persons suspected of directly supporting their life in hiding. Individuals included on these lists are banned from travelling to the US and the EU.

International forces have also repeatedly searched homes belonging to fugitives’ relatives, especially Karadzic’s family in Pale, which includes his wife Ljiljana, his daughter Sonja and his son Sasa. They have even apprehended some of his relatives.

So far, however, the law allowing for financial pressures has not been widely implemented. Such sanctions have only been applied against Zupljanin’s relatives, whose AMF Komerc company in Kotor Varos – which includes a petrol station and a coffee shop – has been temporarily shut down.

Zlatko Lagumdzija, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and a member of Bosnia’s national parliament, told Justice Report that the reluctance to apply the option of financial sanctions partly comes down to the fact that the legislation in question was originally passed under pressure from the international community rather than because deputies actually supported it.

But for more than a year now, Deputy High Representative Gregorian has been pushing for more concerted efforts to put the law into practice.

His campaign culminated with a visit to Pale on August 24 when, watched by a pack of journalists, he preceded to measure up the front yard of the Karadzic family home and take down the details of the car parked out front. He told the media that confiscation of the family’s property could be expected soon.

In a recent interview with Justice Report, Gregorian explained that the decision to take such steps lies with Bosnia’s chief prosecutor or with the Council of Ministers.

Afterwards, a list can be drawn up of items to be confiscated, perhaps including money, vehicles or credit cards. Those being targeted might also be banned from selling their house or transferring ownership to someone else. Such measures would remain in place until the fugitive in question is taken into custody.

Gregorian made it clear that such sanctions are only an option in the cases of Karadzic, Mladic and Zupljanin, since Hadzic and his family are not thought to have property in BiH.

But he went on to insist that, in those cases where it is appropriate, targeting the finances of relatives suspected of supporting fugitives would be a positive step that would “associate the country with the EU policies and will help BiH fulfil its obligations for cooperation with the ICTY.”

Echoing this approval of possible sanctions, Bosnian legal expert Dennis Gratz told Justice Report that this approach could be “very efficient for putting pressure and for destroying the network that provides protections and supports the ICTY fugitives in escaping justice.”

At the same time, the debate that surrounds the idea of such sanctions includes some rather more sceptical viewpoints.

Branko Todorovic, the president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bijeljina, warns that the failure thus far to arrest the remaining four indictees “should not be compensated by something that will look like an unfair punishment of the family members.”

Jakob Finci, the president of the Jewish community in BiH, who is also a lawyer and active in non-governmental organisations dealing with transitional justice issues, added that he too is “not a supporter” of freezing the property of ICTY fugitives and their relatives, arguing that “what they are indicted for should be treated separately from what they own”.

But another Bosnian legal expert, Savima Sali Terzic, denies that sanctions would violate the rights of fugitives’ families.

Far from being persecuted simply because their relative is suspected of war crimes and on the run, she said, the individuals in question would face sanctions as a direct consequence of the suspicion that they have personally taken part in assisting a fugitive.

Terzic also noted that those subject to sanctions would still be allowed access to resources to cover necessities like food, rent, mortgage payments, medical treatment, taxes and insurance.

Another complaint against the drive for financial measures to tackle this issue has been that it is little more than a half-hearted gesture, designed to assuage criticism concerning the failure thus far to arrest the remaining fugitives.

“I am afraid that this type of pressure on family members is actually a simulation of serious intentions for arresting of the war crime indictees,” said Todorovic.

Whatever the merits and disadvantages of applying such sanctions, Zulfo Salihovic, a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, told Justice Report that he for one would derive no satisfaction from whatever hardship they would cause for the fugitives’ families.

“This means nothing to the victims,” he told Justice Report. “This does not bring satisfaction. Our main goal is for the executioners to face justice.”

Erna Mackic (erna@birn.eu.com) and Merima Husejnovic (merima@birn.eu.com) are Justice Report journalists based in Sarajevo. Justice Report is the online publication of BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina.