BiH: some technicality

Neither this headline nor this first paragraph from Reuters are accurate:

Bosnia war crimes suspect walks on technicality

A Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect whose wife was killed in a shootout with European Union soldiers during his arrest in January is to go free on a legal technicality, Bosnia's state court said on Thursday.

Of course the court said no such thing as "legal technicality," and the FBiH news agency in Sarajevo, which might have some cause to be upset by the result, says nothing about a technicality.

Here's what happened:

The BiH War Crimes Chamber cancelled detention to Dragomir Abazovic and ordered that he be released immediately, the Court of BiH stated. Acting on the appeal by the suspect the BiH War Crimes Chamber decided that the detention ordered by the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo, which was done before the case was taken over by the Court of BiH, was not based on the BiH Criminal Code as the relevant legislation.

Or in more idiomatic English:

Abazovic was arrested on a old warrant that was no longer valid because Bosnia had since established its own war crimes court and relevant legislation. "Since the state court took over the case in July 2005, the Criminal Procedure Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the relevant law in this matter," spokesman Dino Bjelopoljak said.

The Reuters slant is familiar to those of us defending accused people stateside. It cheapens a part of something that was fairly hard-won, the Criminal Procedure Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a fairly crucial component of Bosnia's stabilization under the rule of law.

I was life-changingly lucky to enjoy two lengthy stays among our Bosnian criminal defense colleagues. Talking in terms of technicalities, about a commitment to legal norms for which many of them paid a harrowing price in war, disrespects them.

Update: here is more in-depth coverage from International Crimes Blog and Jurist.