KTRZ - Specific criminal offence and perpetrator - war crime
Indictments filed: 1 indictment against 6 persons
Cessation of investigation: in 2 cases against 9 persons
Non-conducting of investigation: in 2 cases against 10 persons
Transferred to another prosecutor’s office for prosecution: 1 case, 1 person
Total number of resolved KTRZ cases at the end of the reporting period: 8 cases, 39 persons
Unresolved KTRZ cases at the end of the reporting period: 156 cases, 1985 persons.
 
KTARZ - Unspecified criminal offence or perpetrator - war crime; total No. of resolved cases:
Non-conducting of investigation: in 81 cases
Resolved in another way: 44 cases
Converted to a KTRZ case: 0 cases
Transferred to another prosecutor’s office: 4 cases
Unresolved at the end of the reporting period: 703 cases

KTNRZ - Specific criminal offence with an unidentified perpetrator - war crime; total number of resolved cases
Non-conducting of investigation: in 1 case
Cessation of investigation: in 0 cases
Resolved in another way: 6 cases
Converted to a KTRZ case: 1 case
Transferred to another prosecutor’s office: 27 cases
Unresolved at the end of the reporting period: 222 cases.

One or several persons are still inaccessible in 86 KTRZ cases ; of this number, 39 persons are persons with the designation “A”.

Total number of unresolved cases with persons with the designation “A” in the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina /PO BiH/: 98 persons in 37 KTRZ cases. The PO BiH completed in different ways activities related to a total of 713 persons with the designation “A”; of this number, 337 persons were transferred to other prosecutor’s offices.

The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH continuously submits reports on its work on war crimes cases to the Supervisory Body for Monitoring the Implementation of the National War Crimes Strategy, in which the Head of the Special Department for War Crimes participates as a representative of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH and a member without vote.

In March 2026, at the premises of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, the Head of the Special Department for War Crimes of the POBiH held individual meetings with prosecutors to review and assess the complexity of the cases assigned to prosecutors with the aim of allocating priority cases for 2026. At the proposal of the Head of the Special Department for War Crimes in the POBiH, the Chief Prosecutor issued individual binding instructions setting the deadline for prosecutorial decisions in priority cases. In order to ensure full support to prosecutors in dealing with priority cases, the Head of the Special Department also held a meeting with representatives of the State Investigation and Protection Agency of BiH, which provided the prosecutors with the most experienced staff in working on the most complex cases.

Successful cooperation and communication between the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the IRMCT continued, including online meetings to exchange information and gather evidence in specific cases, as well as the support of the IRMCT in cases that have been determined as a priorities and cases with recorded inaccessible reported and suspected persons.

The Chief Prosecutor of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, Milanko Kajganić, and the Deputy Chief Prosecutor and Head of the Special Department for War Crimes, Ivan Matešić, met with the Chief Prosecutor of the IRMCT in The Hague, Serge Brammertz. The meeting parties discussed the work and plans of the Special Department for War Crimes in 2026, cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor of the IRMCT, as well as achieved results and other important issues in the area of cooperation between the two prosecutor’s offices. At the meeting, the importance of the joint fight against impunity for war crimes was highlighted, as well as the efforts that the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is investing in order to prosecute those accused of war crimes who are unavailable to the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The need for the support of the Office of the Prosecutor of the IRMCT in this process was highlighted, given that there are hundreds of suspects and accused persons in the countries of the region on whose prosecution the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH insists, and which can only happen with the active cooperation of the judiciary of the countries of the region, as well as the support of the Office of the Prosecutor from the Hague. Also, an analysis was performed of the results achieved in the previous six months and the pressing problems and obstacles that must be overcome in order to continuously achieve progress in the achieved results.

Long-term cooperation with the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH has continued, and the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH continuously conducts activities aimed at finding missing persons within the framework of the Terra case. Periodic meetings of all entities involved in the process of searching for missing persons are held in order to overcome obstacles and efficiently deal with concrete cases of exhumations that have been waiting for a long time to be realized due to various reasons such as the possible danger of mines, potential high costs of exhumations, insufficiently substantiated or explained requests and the like. For this purpose, operational groups were formed for certain areas and a list of future activities that will continue during 2026 was established. In addition to joint work on cases, the Prosecutor’s Office continued cooperation with the IMP BiH through participation in conferences, meetings, working groups, trainings and other activities, and representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH had the opportunity to speak at the conference marking the International Day of the Family entitled - Families without answers - life between hope and loss.

In the reporting period, the activities of the Coordinating Body for Witness Support continued, which operate within the project component of the HJPC of BiH "Improving work on war crimes cases" IPA 2022 in cooperation with the Witness Support Departments of the Court of BiH and the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH. The project "Improving legal and psychosocial protection for women survivors of war violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina" was also implemented by the Foundation of Local Democracy from Sarajevo with the financial support of AMICA e.V. Freiburg, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany (BMZ) and the Baden-Württemberg Foundation. The trainings were held in December 2025 and February 2026 and were attended by witness support officers of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH and entity prosecutions, representatives of the court police and SIPA investigators from the Witness Protection Unit.

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) organized a professional workshop "Education on ICMP guidelines for exhumations and identifications and related professional standards", which was held on 17 and 18 February 2026, in which representatives of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office also participated. The goal of the workshop was to improve the understanding and application of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) of the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH and ICMP’s SOP for taking bone and tooth samples for DNA analysis, through the analysis of risks, responsibilities and consequences of non-compliance with established procedures.

During the first half of 2026, the prosecutors of the Special Department for War Crimes participated in numerous professional conferences, which contributed to solving the challenges they face in their work through the exchange of experiences and education.

As in the previous period, activities focused on cooperation with associations of war crimes victims continued, and important meetings were held with representatives of these associations. 
A noticeable positive effect is achieved in strengthening the trust of the injured parties in the work of the institution trough these activities and progress in the cooperation of the injured with the acting prosecutors in specific cases.
 

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