Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL

Complementarity and the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction for
Core International Crimes
three others), the Banski Kovaĉevac case (with the accused Bulat and
Vranešević), the Lovas case (with accused Devetak and 12 others), the
Stara Gradiška case (with Španović), the Gnjilane group case (with
Fazlija and 16 others) and the Orahovac group case (with Sinan Morina).
In Croatia 1,428 persons had been accused of crimes involving violations
of international humanitarian law of whom 611 had been convicted
between 1991 and 2006, a large number in absentia. 69 General
Branimir Glavaš and six other defendants were indicted on 16 April 2007
for the commission of war crimes in Osijek in 1991 while a second indictment
was issued on 9 May 2007. The trial started on 15 October 2007
and was adjourned until the end of September 2008. 70 The ICTY has
transferred two persons to Croatia, namely generals Ademi and Norac 71
whose trial started in 2007; Norac was sentenced to seven years imprisonment
on 30 May 2008, while Ademi was acquitted of all charges the
same day. Croatia has also charged one person who had been acquitted by
the ICTY, Miroslav Radić, in November 2007. Fifteen more persons were
charged in January 72 and June 2008 while on 9 June 2008, a former Serb
police commander, Mitar Arambašić, was sentenced to 20 years
imprisonment for atrocities committed during Croatia‟s war of
independence. On 5 September Ibrahim Jusić (43) and Zlatko Jusić (59),
two Muslims who hold dual Bosnian and Croatian citizenship, were
charged with having set up concentration camps and taken part in
torturing and raping detainees in the Autonomous Province of Western
Bosnia from 1993 to 1995.
On 3 October 2008, the Rijeka County Court sentenced Ţeljko
Šuput and Milan Panić of Korenica to four and 3.5 years of imprisonment
for war crimes. The two men were charged with war crimes committed in
1991 against two police officers and a member of the Civil Defence in the
then occupied town of Korenica. On 12 October, charges were laid
69
See the website of the Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, Osijek, at
http://original.centar-za-mir.hr/sudenjeeng.html, specifically its 2006 Report, page 6,
which can be found at (http://original.centar-za-mir.hr/pdf/ Summary Annual report
2006.pdf), as well as the International Justice Tribune (IJT), Issue 76, 22 October,
pages 3-4 and the OCSE website at http://www.osce.org/zagreb/29857.html.
70
See http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/branimir_glavas_572.html.
71
See http://www.un.org/icty/ademi/trialc/decision-e/050914.htm.
72
See the 2007 Annual Report of the Humanitarian Law Centre at http://www.hlcrdc.org/uploads/editor/Godisnji_izvestaj_engleski.pdf,
pages 44-48.
FICHL Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 30