Countries in the region have serious difficulties in cooperating on war crime cases and missing persons issues, said Chief Prosecutor at the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (UNMICT), Serge Brammertz, on Wednesday. Brammerz presented his six-month report to the UN Security Council.

The Hague-based UNMICT is tasked with finishing the job of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which closed its doors last year.

Brammetz said that all regional countries have adopted a Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes and had asked the relevant Hague Prosecutors’ Office to help them.

“We consider that many more cases will be prosecuted when the problems in regard to regional cooperation are solved,” he said, adding that all former Yugoslav countries signed a number of agreements in regard to the joint search for missing persons, but that the obligations stemming from those agreements are still “only on paper”.

“The financial support from the budgets dedicated to the search for missing persons is limited and insufficient. There is also a need for a political will so that a climate is created in which witnesses will by themselves come out with the information they have,” he said.

“Glorifying war criminals has the opposite effect,” he added.

According to Brammertz, the search for the remaining 10,000 persons still missing in the region should be “top priority”.

The Chief Prosecutor’s report also states that the final verdict against former President of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) territorial entity, Radovan Karadzic, is expected to be handed down by the end of the year, as well as a ruling on the appeal on the first instance verdict against former RS Army General Ratko Mladic.

Verdicts against the former head of Serbia’s Security Service, Jovica Stanisic, and former Serbian Intelligence officer, Franko Simatovic, are also expected to be handed down within the year.