The arrest of war-time military chiefs shows that the Bosnian authorities are on the right track and that the judiciary in that country is unbiased, Serbian human rights activists said following the arrest of Atif Dudakovic and former officers of his Fifth Corps.

Lawyer Savo Strbac said he hopes that Dudakovic’s arrest shows that we are on the right track.

“Let’s hope the time has come years after the end of the war, that there are professionals and that politics will allow them to do their job and pass a just sentence,” Strbac, president of the Veritas Information and Documentation Center, told N1.  

Strbac said the war crimes charges against Dudakovic and his subordinates were raised 12 years ago, adding that video tapes, affidavits and evidence from 21 mass graves were handed to the Bosnian judiciary. He said one of the tapes shows Dudakovic ordering his men to “kill them all and burn everything”. “I believe his guilt is clear and if the court and prosecutors in Bosnia are professional he will be sentenced as a war criminal,” Strbac said.  

Humanitarian Law Fund spokesman Nemanja Stepanovic said he believes the Bosnian judiciary is unbiased, adding that the arrests of war-time military chiefs who were given top medals and a ranking member of the ruling party show just that.  

“The court will determine the facts of the crimes in Kljuc, Petrovac, Sanski Most where crimes were committed against Serb civilians. This will develop into a trial and the question is whether the court will determine who the perpetrators are and what their connection to General Dudakovic is,” Stepanovic said.  

He said Bosnia was a step ahead of the rest of the region since Serbia and Croatia have tried almost none of their high-ranking war-time military and police officers despite evidence of war crimes.