CCPR/C/115/D/2064/2011 information relevant to determining the identity of persons who had gone missing in Sarajevo during the war and whose fate remained unknown. The Office for Tracing Detained and Missing Persons also requested access to the records of the exhumation and the bone samples taken from the bodies in order to match locations with its own data, and asked for DNA analysis. The letters referred to 32 unidentified corpses buried in the cemetery of Visoko in 2003, one of which might have been the mortal remains of Božo Mandić.6 In a letter dated 6 September 2006 to the Office of the Cantonal Prosecutor, the Office for Tracing Detained and Missing Persons stated that it had carried out exhumations and searched for mortal remains at a site indicated by a witness, Mr. Pešic, but that no traces of human bones had been found. Consequently, the Office searched further and established that exhumations had previously been carried out at that site, and that on 4 November 1998, six bodies were exhumed and transferred to the Vlakovo cemetery. 2.6 In letters dated 12 February 2007 to the author and the Republika Srpska Office for Tracing Detained and Missing Persons, the Office of the Cantonal Prosecutor confirmed that exhumations had been carried out in Lukavička Road between September and November 1998 and mentioned the similarity between the author’s father’s case and another case (KTA-28/98 RZ) in which two bodies had been exhumed from the Lukavička Road and transferred to the Visoko cemetery. The Office of the Cantonal Prosecutor also stated that it had forwarded a report on the matter to the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 9 March 2006. However, Milan Mandić never received any further communications from either the Office of the Cantonal Prosecutor or from the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He instead received a letter dated 6 June 2006 from the Federal Commission on Missing Persons addressed to his mother, who had died in the meantime, asking her to provide detailed information about the disappearance of her husband. On 17 February 2011, he sent a letter to the Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina formally requesting to be informed about the outcome of the investigations. He has not received any reply. 2.7 On 5 April 2004, Milan Mandić gave samples of his DNA and filed an ante-mortem questionnaire about Božo Mandić through ICRC. No reply was received to this initiative. Božo Mandić is still registered as a missing person with ICRC, the International Commission on Missing Persons and the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2.8 Božo Mandić’s wife had applied in December 2003 to the Human Rights Commission within the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, claiming a violation of article 3 (prohibition of torture) and article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights) in connection with article 1 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Agreement). The Constitutional Court decided to join her claim to other claims submitted by relatives of missing persons and to process them as a collective case. On 15 December 2005, the Constitutional Court adopted a decision on the admissibility and the merits of the case, referring to a previous case of the Constitutional Court in which it had concluded that the applicants were relieved of having to exhaust domestic remedies before ordinary courts as no specialized institution on enforced disappearance in Bosnia and Herzegovina seemed to be operating effectively.7 The Court found a violation of articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention in conjunction with article 1 of the Dayton Agreement, owing to the lack of 6 7 4 This letter indicates that the Office believed that individuals whose names were on its tracing list had been buried in the Visoko cemetery. Božo Mandić was on that list. Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, M.H. and others (case No. AP-129/04), 27 May 2005, paras. 37-40.

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