ICTY Delivers New Set of Transcripts to Bosnia and Herzegovina

Press Release	TRIBUNAL
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)

The Hague, 30 June 2011
VE/MOW/1423e

ICTY Delivers New Set of Transcripts to Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

Today, the Tribunal delivered approximately 1,800 pages of transcripts produced in local languages to the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The transcripts were delivered as part of the War Crimes Justice Project (WCJP), which aims to enhance the capacity of regional judiciaries to handle complex war crimes cases, by assisting in the transfer of knowledge and materials from the ICTY to legal professionals in the region. The provision of transcripts in the local languages is expected to improve the ability of these practitioners to access and utilise testimony given before the ICTY.

The transcripts are produced in the region’s local languages from the audio recordings of ICTY court hearings. Until October 2010, the trial transcripts were available only in English and French, the official languages of the ICTY.

Commenting on this aspect of the Project, Boris Grubešić, Head of the Public Relations Department of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, said: “Transcripts in the languages of the region make it easier for local judiciaries to use the testimonies given before the ICTY. These testimonies are related to events that occurred during the war in BosniaHerzegovina which the Prosecutor’s Office is currently dealing with. Many of our cases include witnesses that testified before the ICTY previously. Their transcripts are therefore very useful in our analysis and investigation of war crimes. We support the continuation of this project, which greatly contributes to increasing the efficiency of the process of determining guilt for war crimes.”

Approximately 14,000 pages of B/C/S transcripts, out of 38,000 already produced as part of the project, are now available on the Tribunal’s Internet Court Records database (ICR). Additional transcripts will be uploaded on the ICR in the coming months, with the aim of publishing the targeted 60,000 pages of transcripts by the end of 2011. Transcripts can be accessed via the following link on the ICTY’s website: http://icr.icty.org.

Since the launch of the WCJP in July 2010, the ICTY has delivered approximately 14,500 pages of B/C/S public trial transcripts to the authorities in Croatia, Serbia and BiH.

The War Crimes Justice Project is a 4-million euro regional project funded by the European Union and carried out by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), in partnership with the ICTY, the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), and OSCE field operations.

War Crimes Justice Project Partners
This project is funded by the European Union	Implemented by: