25 January 2008 Podgorica_ All war crimes investigations currently underway in Montenegro are to be completed by May, according to the President of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica.
Ongoing investigations into organized crime should be wrapped up a month earlier, Medenica said on Thursday.
“The presidents of the courts will give all necessary support to investigative judges in these cases, while the Supreme Court president is ready to coordinate international cooperation, as the investigative activities need to be finished by these deadlines,” a press release says on the Supreme Court’s website.
If the investigations are not finished as scheduled, it will be necessary to present a “detailed explanation to the President” of the Supreme Court.
War crimes investigations – including the deportation of Muslims in 1992 and the ill-treatment of Croat civilians in the Morinj detention camp – will be led by a single investigative judge who will be freed from other duties.
Medenica was appointed to her post in mid- December, after serving four years as the state prosecutor.
The public mainly remember her because of her statement that “the first time she heard about crimes in Morinj, which happened in the early 1990s, was in 2003”.
Montenegro’s judiciary and prosecutors have been criticized for the slow pace of criminal investigations.