Balijagić's legal career: From Fikret Abdić to petty criminals

Controversial Tuzla lawyer Faruk Balijagić was handed over to the cantonal prosecutor in Sarajevo, after being arrested on Tuesday around noon. Two of his clients reported that Balijagić had persuaded them to kill a third person with whom they were in conflict.

According to the same report, Balijagić's son, Ado, was also arrested along with Balijagić in a police operation, writes the Patria news agency.

Balijagić grew from a decent to a more reputable lawyer after he began appearing as Fikret Abdić's defense attorney in the major "Agrokomerc" affair in the late 1980s. Abdić was accused by the authorities at the time of counter-revolutionary activities, and a few years later he would cause a fratricidal conflict among Bosniaks in Velika Kladuša.

From then until today, the media have been full of articles linking lawyer Balijagić to suspicious individuals, controversial court proceedings, espionage of the highest Bosniak political leadership, and sex scandals...

During the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, Balijagić was often linked to the Croatian Security and Information Service. After the end of the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was labeled as someone who was undermining the highest Bosniak political leadership – Balijagić used every media appearance to slander Alija Izetbegović, the first president of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as his close associates like Hasan and Halid Čengić, and others.

CHOICE OF CLIENTS

Balijagić is also known for his choice of clients. He often defended defendants in the most serious criminal offenses, such as Milenko Marinković, who was convicted of abusing Bettina Siegner in the village of Karavlasi near Kalesija. Bettina was a slave for four full years, starved in Marinković's house – so she stole food from dogs and pigs – and beaten.

Among his clients are those who are now on trial for extortion, such as Mirza Hatić from Sarajevo.

In the last four years alone, Balijagić has made headlines several times due to scandals that have shaken the country – in 2011, his house was shot at, somewhat earlier his name was linked to a sex scandal at the Faculty of Law in Tuzla, and in February of this year, a bomb was thrown at his office.

For a time, Balijagić was also the lawyer for Sefer Halilović, when he was sent to The Hague in 2001. However, as was speculated at the time, the controversial man from Tuzla allegedly took a significant amount of money that he had as a lawyer in The Hague, and Halilović revoked his power of attorney.

Incidentally, for the record, Balijagić is a close friend of the former director of federal intelligence, also controversial, Munir Alibabić.