In 1999, former Lincoln police investigator Kathryn Bolkovac joined DynCorp Aerospace, a British subsidiary of U.S.-based DynCorp International, under a $15 million United Nations-related contract to recruit and train police officers for Bosnia and Herzegovina. While working as a human-rights investigator, Bolkovac reported that fellow DynCorp officers were paying for prostitutes, raping underage girls, and participating in sex trafficking. Her allegations implicated the oversight failures surrounding international contractors operating in a postwar environment.
Bolkovac filed a whistleblower lawsuit in Great Britain in July 2001 after DynCorp dismissed her, alleging that the company used accusations of falsifying time sheets as a pretext for retaliation. On August 2, 2002, an employment tribunal unanimously ruled in her favor, and in November 2002 it ordered DynCorp to pay £110,221 in damages. Madeleine Rees of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights testified in support of Bolkovac. The source states that suspected contractors benefited from immunity from prosecution in Bosnia; some resigned or were removed, while the U.S. government continued its DynCorp contract. The case became a prominent example of accountability gaps in outsourced international policing and military-support operations.
