‘The Court is Accommodating our Murderers’: Prosecuting Aged Defendants in Domestic Courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract Although the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended a quarter of a century ago, a large number of war crimes suspects are still being prosecuted. One of the visible issues arising in domestic courts are aged defendants, whose trials are delayed due to old age and illness. The aim of this article is to give an overview of case law and analyze the process of prosecuting aged defendants at the War Crimes Chamber within the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which carries the largest workload of war crimes cases in the region. This article focuses on two main aspects: portrayal of these cases in the media and the legal reasoning of the court.