The Director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, Emir Suljagić, has filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Milorad Dodik, the president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
According to Suljagić, the complaint was submitted because Dodik, during an appearance on Alternative Television in Banja Luka, praised Ratko Mladić, who was convicted of genocide and other war crimes.
In a televised interview on May 5, Dodik stated that “Mladić is the supreme commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, a national hero of this people.”
Former High Representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, used the Bonn Powers in July 2021 to impose amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which prohibit the glorification of war criminals and the denial of crimes.
These provisions stipulate a prison sentence of six months to five years for anyone who publicly approves, denies, grossly minimizes, or attempts to justify genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes established by a final court judgment.
“Ratko Mladić has been convicted of genocide in Srebrenica. The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina can no longer claim that there are no charges against Dodik, and now everything depends on them,” Suljagić stated.
Mladić is serving a life sentence following a final verdict in 2021 for genocide in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war committed during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to REL.
He was convicted on 10 of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He was found guilty of the genocide of approximately 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica, then a United Nations-designated safe area, in the summer of 1995, as well as the persecution and forced displacement of Bosniaks and Croats across Bosnia and Herzegovina, the shelling and terrorization of civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, and the taking of UN peacekeepers hostage during NATO airstrikes in 1995.
Mladić was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and extradited to The Hague tribunal six days later.
