Croatian state prosecutor claims the number of prosecuted war crimes is very low

Numbers of prosecuted war crimes in Croatia are “worryingly low”, claims Croatian state prosecutor Mladen Bajic.

Only 109 out of a total of 490 war crimes in Croatia have been entirely prosecuted, Bajic states in his annual report for 2010, which he successfully defended in the Croatian parliament last week.

“These numbers indicate that it is important to continue searching for the perpetrators because not a single crime should stay undiscovered and unprosecuted,” he adds.

Bajic admits in the report that “due to the passing of time, it becomes harder every year” to investigate war crimes, but the Croatian State prosecutor’s office, DORH, “made a series of important measures to complete war crimes investigations and to prosecute not only the perpetrators, but also their commanders”.

According to the database created by the State Prosecutor’s office, at least 5,998 people were killed in war crimes in Croatia and 2,266 were injured, 2,354 suffered “torture, abuse and inhuman treatment”, and 67 people were raped.