Bosnia and Herzegovina Justice Minister Davor Bunoza and International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT) Secretary Abubacarr Tambadou signed in Sarajevo on Tuesday a memorandum of cooperation on the takeover of international tribunals' criminal records.

The document defines the takeover of information from the final sentences against BiH citizens delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and its successor, the MICT.

As a result, the guilty verdicts will finally be entered into BiH criminal records and convicted persons will no longer be able to apply for government jobs. So far, those sentences have not posed any obstacles to convicted persons in BiH to obtain certificates stating they do not have a criminal record.

Bunoza said he hoped the signing of the memorandum would fix that and that solving this issue “creates the prerequisites for reconciliation as a condition for joining the European Union.”

Tambadou said that, with this, the MICT and the international community proved their readiness to have lasting cooperation with BiH.

He said his arrival in Sarajevo was a significant chapter in insisting on accountability. Accountability does not end with a sentence, because those who committed the worst crimes against international law must bear the consequences even after serving their sentence and be faced with it all their lives, he added.

With Serbia, there is a working agreement on the exchange of sentences because there was no need to sign a formal memorandum of understanding, but there is no such agreement with Croatia, he said. It's an ongoing process and we are taking it step by step, he added.

The ICTY and the MICT have convicted 93 persons from the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

Murat Tahirovic, president of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of the Genocide in BiH, said Bunoza was the first justice minister who understood the importance of entering those sentences into domestic criminal records.

Various associations, including the Mothers of Srebrenica, fought for that more than a decade, he said. “That's a victory of justice over injustice and a result of painstaking efforts.”

Tahirovic said the planned amendments to the election law should ban persons sentenced for war crimes from running for any kind of office.

There is general agreement on that and High Representative Christian Schmidt, if he imposes those amendments, will include such solutions, he added.