The international community's High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, on Friday lifted financial and legal sanctions against 82 persons, including the family of the ICTY indictee Radovan Karadzic and the fugitive Goran Hadzic, who were suspected of having provided support to the recently arrested Bosnian Serb wartime military commander Ratko Mladic.
The Austrian diplomat announced his move at a press conference in Sarajevo, saying that he had annulled the decisions issued by his predecessors, whereby 58 persons had been banned from participating in political life and the bank accounts of 34 persons suspected of financially assisting war crimes fugitives in evading arrest had been frozen.
"The lifting of these decisions in no way affects previous, ongoing or future criminal proceedings against the individuals in question and lifting these decisions in no way represents an endorsement of any of the individuals concerned to return to the political arena nor does it entitle those individuals to return to the position from which they were removed," Inzko said.
He said that after Mladic had been arrested and transferred to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, keeping the bans in force made no sense any more.
"With Ratko Mladic now finally appearing before the ICTY in The Hague, the condition has been met for the bans on all officials who have been removed by the High Representative in relation to non-cooperation with the ICTY to be lifted. As a result, I have decided today to lift the bans on 58 individuals affected. In the same way, I have lifted orders blocking the accounts of 34 individuals that were suspected to materially support the persons indicted for war crimes," Inzko said.
