The following media round up on international, legal and foreign policy issues from around the Balkans for the period from 5 November to 11 November 2021.
The Guernica Group will provide bi-weekly media updates with a focus Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia . Should you wish to contribute or submit a media summary, opinion piece or blog, please send to Ned Vucijak at nenadv@guernica37.com for consideration.
Bosnia and Herzegovina – 5 November 2021
The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court has upheld a prosecution appeal, quashed a verdict that threw out the indictment of Adem Kostjerevac, and ordered a retrial of the former Bosnian Army military policeman.
Serbia – 8 November 2021
The Youth Initiative for Human Rights, a Belgrade-based NGO, filed a lawsuit against the Serbian Interior Ministry after it banned the rights activists from organising a public gathering to paint over a mural of Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic on the wall of a building in Belgrade.
Kosovo – 8 November 2021
The leader of the KLA War Veterans’ Association, Hysni Gucati, and his deputy Nasim Haradinaj insisted on Monday that they are innocent of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation, and denounced the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which was set up to prosecute crimes committed during the Kosovo war.
Serbia – 9 November 2021
Belgrade’s Court of Appeals has confirmed the two-year sentence handed down to Bosnian Serb ex-fighter Zeljko Budimir for beating up a civilian and stealing his money in the village of Rejzovici in Bosnia’s Kljuc municipality in November 1992.
Bosnia and Herzegovina – 10 November 2021
Sakib Mahmuljin’s defence lawyer Fahrudin Ibrisimovic said that the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court overturned the first-instance verdict, sentencing the former commander of the Bosnian Army’s Third Corps to ten years in prison.
Kosovo - 10 November 2021
A protected witness told the war crimes trial of the former KLA fighter Salih Mustafa that he saw a prisoner being beaten up in a cowshed where guerrillas detained him in 1999. Mustafa is accused of involvement in murder, torture, cruel treatment and arbitrary detentions during the Kosovo war in April 1999 at a KLA-run detention compound in Zllash/Zlas, which was allegedly run by a unit that he commanded.
Croatia – 11 November 2021
Croatia’s Former Minister for Regional Development and EU Funds, Gabrijela Zalac, and the director of the Central Finance and Contracting Agency, Tomislav Petric, were arrested as part of an operation by the EPPO in Croatia on suspicion of corruption concerning an overpayment for a software contract.
Albania – 11 November 2021
Sokol Hazizaj, a lawyer for Albania’s fugitive former Chief Prosecutor, Adriatik Llalla, said that his client would appeal the two-year jail sentence imposed in May for not declaring his real wealth in asset declarations. Llalla was found guilty in May of making a false declaration about his assets and concealing wealth estimated at about one million euros.