Following their meeting today in the OHR Sarajevo, the High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, and the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte issued the following joint statement:
The Chief Prosecutor of ICTY and the High Representative have agreed that the issue of building the capacity of the BiH authorities to prosecute war crimes is essential. This capacity will complement the ICTY in bringing those indicted for war crimes to justice. BiH cannot be a fully functioning state without that capacity, which is a key part of bringing closure to the war.
The Chief Prosecutor and the High Representative both expressed their determination to build this capacity. Both the ICTY and OHR hope and expect the International Community to now identify the resources and the organisations that will take forward the process of assisting the BiH authorities in establishing this capacity. The High Representative will be raising this issue at the meeting of the Peace Implementation Council on 20-21 November in Brussels, and will urge that these issues are resolved by the end of the year at the latest.
Both the Chief Prosecutor and the High Representative again called on the BiH authorities, and in particular those of the Republika Srpska, to co-operate fully with the ICTY in its continuing work of prosecuting the most serious cases of violations of international humanitarian law. The ICTY will not close its doors until the most serious cases of war crimes have been heard in the Tribunal, including the case of Radovan Karadzic, and they called once again on the RS authorities, and others, to arrest him.