War Crimes Prosecution and MICT sign MoU

War Crimes Prosecution and MICT sign MoU

Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević and MICT prosecutor Hassan Jallow, who signed the agreement, said that the document had created the conditions for better cooperation between the Serbian prosecutor's office and the MICT, especially when it came to exchange of information.

“The general opinion here is that the cessation of the Hague tribunal’s work means the end of work on the problems of perpetrators of war crimes, which is not true. Right now, the job is moving over to be handled by the judiciary in the region and the contribution of the residual mechanism of the tribunal which is the successor to The Hague prosecution is therefore invaluable,” Vukčević told reporters.

He said that the Serbian prosecutor’s office now had a better and easier access to the database of the tribunal, its documents, physical evidence and witnesses.

Answering journalists' questions, Vukčević said that the Serbian prosecutor's office was not taking over the obligation to raise indictments for The Hague tribunal, but was only required to consider the evidence gathered by the tribunal.

If it appears from the evidence that someone has committed a crime, the Serbian prosecutor's office will act on it, Vukčević said, pointing out that the Serbian prosecutor's office treated the existing indictments as criminal charges.

Journalists wanted to know whether the signed agreement provided the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office with the opportunity to begin to deal with cases of military and police officers of middle and high ranks, and politicians who may have been involved in crimes.

“We have already begun to deal with certain events in attempt to determine whether the activities of certain individuals contain elements of criminal offense,” Vukčević said.

Welcoming the signing of the agreement, Jallow said that the document was setting up the framework for cooperation between the MICT and Serbia’s war crimes prosecution in many areas.

He added that he had held useful discussions with Serbian prosecutors on ways to remove obstacles to mutual cooperation.

Jallow and a Vukčević’s team of prosecutors discussed cooperation within a MICT framework, which should bring about a more efficient completion of all proceedings conducted before the ICTY.

As the last proceedings are coming to a close, this mechanism will gradually take over the functions of The Hague tribunal.

This was the third meeting between prosecutors Vukčević and Jallow, coming after their last year's joint participation in the international conference on the legacy of the international criminal tribunals in Nuremberg.

They previously met in 2008 when a delegation of the War Crime Prosecutor’s Office paid a working visit to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

"Unacceptably lengthy"

Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dačić met Monday with the prosecutor of the newly established Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) Hassan Jallow, and underlined that more convicted Serbian citizens should serve their sentence in Serbia.

Dačić also remarked that the legal proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) are unacceptably lengthy, Serbian Foreign Ministry said.

The two officials discussed Serbia's cooperation with the ICTY so far, and future activities of the MICT, which will take over some of the ICTY's essential functions. Dačić expressed the readiness of Belgrade to continue the cooperation.

The MICT will take over several important tasks from the ICTY, including possible appeals in the cases against Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Goran Hadćić and Vojislav Šešelj.

The MICT will continue to operate until the UN Security Council decides otherwise. The first review of its work is scheduled for 2016, and every two years after that.

The office of the MICT prosecutor will supervise the cases transferred to the national courts in the region, the release states.

This was Jallow's first visit to the region as the MICT prosecutor.