Former Mayor of Kalesija Rasim Omerović Sentenced to Six Months in Prison

(Patria) - The Cantonal Court in Tuzla, in a repeated second-instance proceedings, issued a convicting non-final verdict against former mayor of Kalesija Rasim Omerović for the criminal offense of illegal mediation and sentenced him to six months in prison. Given that the first-instance verdict of the Municipal Court in Kalesija was acquitting, the defendant has the right to appeal this verdict to the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Recall, Omerović was charged by the indictment of the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office of Tuzla Canton with having, in August 2014, as the mayor of Kalesija, abused his official position and mediated to perform an official act that should not have been performed, and in the process of selecting the most favorable bidder for leasing agricultural land, he demanded from members of the Commission for the Selection of the Most Favorable Bids, who were hierarchically subordinate to him, to change the already established list and cumulative points for the most favorable bidders.

Thus, at the request of the accused, the commission members corrected the initially drafted proposal of the list and created a list as Omerović demanded. In this way, two farmers from the Kalesija area were harmed, who had the most favorable bids for larger plots of land they were supposed to lease, but these plots, with a total area of over 43 hectares, were awarded to a person who did not have a more favorable bid, while the more favorable bidders received smaller plots of land for which they had not even applied.

Therefore, the accused mediated towards the commission members to perform actions they should not have performed and acted contrary to the provisions of the Rulebook on criteria for selecting the most favorable bidders for leasing agricultural land in the Kalesija municipality area.