Gibraltar Affair: Bakula, Prlić and Kulenović plead not guilty, Prosecution to call 15 witnesses

At the plea hearing before Section II for Organized Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the accused Stipe Prlić, Zoran Bakula and Neven Kulenović pleaded not guilty, the Court of BiH announced, as reported by the Bosnian news agency Patria.

Boris Grubešić, spokesperson for the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, stated in a media statement that the Prosecutor's Office will call 15 witnesses in this case.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed on May 21, 2015, the indictment charging the accused Stipe Prlić and Zoran Bakula with the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority under Article 383, Paragraph 3, in conjunction with Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH, and the criminal offense of accepting gifts and other forms of benefit under Article 380, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH, and charging the accused Neven Kulenović with the criminal offense of giving gifts and other forms of benefit under Article 381, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH.

The indictment states that the accused Stipe Prlić, as Director – President of the Management Board, and Zoran Bakula, as a member of the Management Board of JP Hrvatske telekomunikacije d.o.o. Mostar, within the public procurement procedure for the development of an "Integrated strategy for planning and leasing media according to target groups of JP HT d.o.o. Mostar, and planning and leasing media according to target groups of JP HT d.o.o. Mostar, and planning and leasing media in BiH," selected the most favorable bidder by choosing the legal entity SV-RSA d.o.o. Sarajevo, owned by the accused Neven Kulenović, as the most favorable bidder, even though the said legal entity was ranked third according to the recommendation of the public procurement commission, acting contrary to the provisions of Article 35, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Public Procurement of BiH and Article 14, Paragraphs 1 and 4 of the Instructions on the Application of the Law on Public Procurement of BiH. For these actions, the accused Neven Kulenović, as owner and deputy director of the legal entity SV-RSA d.o.o. Sarajevo, gave a gift that they had previously agreed upon, through successive payments to the account of Zoran Bakula in the amount of 386,256.86 KM and to the account of Stipe Prlić in the amount of 331,513.18 KM, which gift the accused Zoran Bakula and Stipe Prlić received in such a way that it was paid to them from the account of the legal entity "3 Media Limited" registered in Gibraltar, in which the accused Neven Kulenović is the attorney with general and special power of attorney.

This is the first indictment filed in the Gibraltar case since October 2014, when owners of marketing agencies in BiH were arrested in the SIPA operation of the same name.