BOSNIAN PRESIDENT HARIS SILAJDZIC MET WITH LIBYAN FINANCE MINISTER MOHAMMED HOUIJ

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (June 16,2008) - The Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic, met with the Libyan Finance Minister, Mohammed Houij who took part in meeting for setting a mechanism for implementing the cooperation executive program between the two countries.

During the meeting, they talked about the possibilities for economic cooperation and investments of Libyan investors in Bosnia, as well as opening new jobs for the Bosnian companies in Libya.

Cooperation between the two countries’ universities has also been initiated last month, as well as the second session of Joint Committee by the end of 2008.

At the outset of the meeting, the Bosnian president expressed appreciation for the President of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arabic Jamahiriya Moammer El-Gaddafi.

"I would like to thank President Moammer El-Gaddafi for the interest he demonstrates towards the people and government of Bosnia in the different areas," the Bosnian President said.

Last month,the Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic visited Libya and met with the Libyan President Moammer El-Gaddafi, Libyan Prime Minister El Baghdadi El-Mahmudi, Speaker of Libyan Parliament Miftah Muhamed Keib and other Libyan high officials.

A delegation of the several Bosnian companies also visited Libya last month with President Silajdzic.The Bosnian business delegation had numerous meetings with the Libyan business officials.
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LIBYA TO INVEST 500 MILLION EUROS IN BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (June 16,2008) - Libya intends to invest up to 1 billion Bosnian Marks (500 million Euros) in Bosnia, the Libyan Finance Minister, Mohammed Houij, said in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

"The Libyan government plans to invest up to 500 million Euros in various projects in both private and state-owned sector," Minister Houij told reporters through an interpreter.

He did not specify the time-frame for the investment, only saying that the it would be implemented through a Bosnian development bank.
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47 GENOCIDE VICTIMS BURIED IN BRCKO

BRCKO, Bosnia (June 16,2008) - More than 5,000 Bosnians attended the funeral Saturday of 47 genocide victims from the northern Bosnian town of Brcko.They were mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor in Brcko at the beginning of the 1992-95 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.

The remains of 47 Bosnian civilians were among 277 found in a mass grave in nearby Gorice. About 80 bodies of genocide victims had previously been identified and buried.

More than 500 Bosnian civilians from Brcko remain missing since the war, during which the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's forces captured the Bosnian town and expelled or mass murdered all Bosnian civilians.

The youngest person buried Saturday, 13-year-old Elizabeta Calukovic, was laid to rest next to her father and stepmother.

Her mother, Hanumka Mujkanovic, was in Croatia when the Serbian aggression against Bosnia started. She said she gave all her jewelry to a friend who said he would bring the girl and her father to Croatia, but they never arrived.

Mujkanovic, 53, said she thought her ex-husband had decided to take Elizabeta away from her and had started a new life somewhere in the world with the girl and his wife.

"I looked for her all over the world for years," Mujkanovic said. "But then in February I was informed that Elizabeta, her father and his wife were among the bodies in the mass grave."

Amela Sabanovic, 23, came to bury her father Midhat.

"For 16 years our souls have been seeking peace. We hoped at the beginning that we would find him alive. Then we realized we were searching most likely for his body," she said.

"The perpetrators must be found and punished," Sabanovic said. "A crime without punishment is just an announcement of another crime."

Only four Serbian war criminals have so far received jail sentences for the genocide committed against Bosnian civilians in Brcko.

The devastating genocide in Bosnia was labeled 'ethnic cleansing' by the Serbian fascists; a term accepted by the USA and other members of the UN Security Council to avoid any reference to 'genocide', which would by international law demand their intervention.

In July 1995 the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor mass murdered up to 10,000 Bosnian civilians from the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica.The Srebrenica massacre has been finally deemed by the UN war crimes tribunal and the International Court of Justice to have constituted genocide.

In 1999 the UN owned up to its shame regarding its failure to protect the victims of the fall of Srebrenica. 'Through error, misjudgment, and an inability to recognize the scope of the evil confronting us, we failed to do our part to save the people of Srebrenica from the Serb campaign of mass murder.'

There are still 20,000 people listed as missing in Bosnia. Hope now lies in the science of DNA, which can match profiles taken from remains of the genocide victims with others taken from living relatives providing a grain of solace to those who lost their loved ones to genocide.
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SERBIAN WAR CRIMINAL STOJAN ŽUPLJANIN'S IDENTITY CONFIRMED

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (June 16,2008) - Spokeswoman of the Belgrade District Court,located in the genocidal Serbia, Ivana Ramic said that the identity of Hague fugitive,Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin has been confirmed on the basis of DNA tests.

On 14 March 1999 Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY),located in the Hague,the Netherlands,with genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war and grave breacees of the Geneva Conventions.

He was a former Security chief of the genocidal paramilitary fascist formations of the Serbians living in Bosnia, on the run from justice for almost eight years.Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin committed numerous war crimes against Bosnian civilians during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.He tried to avoid being sent to The Hague by claiming the police had caught the wrong man.

Arrested in Pancevo on Wednesday, Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin denied his identity at the Special Court, and claimed that he was Branislav Vukadin.

The court said that Vukadin, Zupljanin’s assumed identity, has been dead for some time. The The Hague fugitive’s fingerprints were filed under the name of Branislav Vukadin, which was why a DNA analysis was necessary.

His personal ID card with his assumed identity was issued in Backa Palanka. Another fugitive,Serbian war criminal Vlastimir Djordjevic was also carrying the identity card of a dead man when he was arrested in 2007.

Earlier, Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin’s assigned legal counsel Igor Pantelic confirmed that the suspect had introduced himself to the judge as Branislav Vukadin. Pantelic said that he had been present when the suspect’s fingerprints and blood sample had been taken.

Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin

Olga Kavran, spokesperson for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said she hoped the other top Serbian war criminals, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, would be in The Hague shortly.

Serge Brammertz, the UN's chief prosecutor for Yugoslavia war crimes, told the UN Security Council last week that all these Serbian war criminals were within the genocidal Serbia's reach.

Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin, is charged on the basis of his personal and command responsibility with crimes committed against Bosnian civilians in the Bosnian Krajina region, including, among others, the area of Kotor Varos, Banja Luka, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kljuc, Bosanski Novi and elsewhere,during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.

The ICTY indictment states that Serbian war criminal Stojan Zupljanin participated in a joint criminal enterprise together with the convicted Serbian war criminal Radoslav Brdjanin (sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to 30 years’ imprisonment), Serbian war criminals Slobodan Milosevic and Nikola Koljevic (both dead), Serbian war criminal Momcilo Krajisnik (awaiting a verdict in The Hague), the convicted Serbian war criminal Biljana Plavsic (serving 11 years),Serbian war criminal Mico Stanisic (trial ongoing), and other Serbian war criminals.
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DRAFT SRATEGY ON PROCESSING OF WAR CRIMES IN BOSNIA FINALLY COMPLETED

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (June 16,2008) - The Draft Strategy on Processing of War Crimes, which has been prepared by a Working Group led by the Chief Bosnian State Prosecutor, has been completed. It is supposed to be considered by the Bosnian government soon.

Jusuf Halilagic, Secretary of the Bosnian Justice Ministry, confirmed this information.As stated by Halilagic, following the procedure that has to be conducted by the State Council of Ministers, "the Draft Strategy will be reviewed by the Bosnian State Parliament, who commissioned the strategy in the first place".

The Draft Strategy is expected to offer solutions and define the roles of all structures dealing with war crime cases in Bosnia.

The Working Group, which made the Draft War Crimes Processing Strategy, was formed by the Bosnian Justice Ministry in July 2007. The Group has been chaired by the Chief Bosnian State Prosecutor.

Officials employed in the Bosnian Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance and Treasury, Ministry of Security, as well as representatives of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, the State Court, the State Investigation and Protections Agency, entity Ministries of Justice and Finance and judicial institutions from Brcko District participated in the Working Group.

The Bosnian State Prosecution advocated for the passage of a state war crimes processing strategy, considering that there was a need to set "realistic deadlines" and targets for efficient conducting of war crime proceedings.

"It is certain that the Strategy cannot solve the war crime cases, but it will provide guidance and involve relevant institutions in solving the issues present in our country today," said Marinko Jurcevic, former Bosnian State Prosecutor.

Milorad Barasin, who took over the chairmanship of the Wokring Group, after having become Chief Prosecutor in March this year, shares his opinion.

"The State Startegy for war dealing with war crime cases will determine how many persons and how much material and technical resources the judicial and police institutions, at the entity and state levels, need in order to complete the large number of war crime cases within a reasonable timeframe," Milorad Barasin said earlier this year.

Miroslav Lajcak, the International Community's High Representative in Bosnia, upheld the idea of a state-level strategy for war crimes processing. He said, on several occasions, that the ratio between the number of investigators and war crime cases was disproportionate. The data available to the Bosnian State Prosecution suggest that there are about 14,000 war crime cases.

"Considering these figures, we would need more than one hundred years to process all war crime cases. Unless some changes are introduced, the answers will be given by the passage of time, and not by justice," Lajcak considers.

The Strategy is expected to help determine the final number of war crime cases, which will be processed, as well as the criteria that will be followed.It has taken more than one year for the Working Group to complete the Draft Strategy. The process was supervised and advised by the international community.
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EU POLICE MISSION ORGANISED A WORKSHOP ON BOSNIAN PRISON SYSTEM

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (June 16,2008) - The EU Police Mission [EUPM) organised a Workshop on Prison Service Development in Bosnia in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.At the Workshop, the EU Police Mission presented the findings of its analysis of the Bosnian prison system and discussed the way ahead towards developing a sustainable, professional prison service with secure, safe and orderly functions.

“Unfortunately the prison system resembles the fragmentation of most of the structures in this country.We all start to understand the failures of the existing prison system and to think about new solutions.This is only the first workshop. We will help the local authorities establish a system which will allow those who are responsible for the correctional system in Bosnia to coordinate their decisions and make the system work better,” said Brigadier General Vincenzo Coppola, Head of the EU Police Mission in Bosnia, when opening the workshop.

Following the escape of Serbian war criminal Radovan Stankovic from the Foca prison last year, the international community tasked the EUPM to look into ways to improve the correctional system in Bosnia. A prison expert, Claus Andersin, joined the Mission in May 2007 this year and has since then been visiting various detention centres throughout Bosnia.

The workshop gathered representatives of the Bosnian state and entity ministries of justice, directors of all correctional facilities in Bosnia, as well as representatives of the International Community.

“We hope that we will be able to launch an international tender procedure for the construction of a new state prison by the end of this year.This will be the most modern and secured prison in Bosnia and it will meet all the requirements for imprisoning perpetrators of the gravest crime cases,” said Mustafa Bisic,Assistant Minister of Justice of Bosnia.
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