Budimir promised he won't go to prison if he ensures Lukač is appointed!?

By delaying the publication of the Law on Internal Affairs of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Official Gazette of the FBiH, the intention was to leave room for Dragan Lukač to be re-elected as director of the Federal Police Administration, sources from the FBiH Government told the Bosnian news agency Patria, who consider Lukač's reappointment as head of the FUP yet another major political farce in the country.

The Law on Internal Affairs of the FBiH was adopted on July 18 last year. Although there are legal deadlines by which it must be signed by the President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and then published in the Official Gazette, Živko Budimir apparently and deliberately kept it in his drawer until October 1, more than two months after its adoption.

The Independent Board of the Federal Parliament today reappointed Lukač as head of the FUP, which many have deemed scandalous and illegal.

Patria's interlocutors warn that Lukač's reappointment was planned even earlier, and that the failure was precisely Budimir's. By deliberately keeping the new law with him, he left room for the Independent Board to announce a competition for the selection of a new FUP director under the old law.

This has now led to legal chaos, and it is no longer known whether today's appointment is legal or illegal, whether the entire procedure was conducted legally or illegally. However, it is known that someone will have to face criminal charges.

In an interview with the Patria agency, Budimir strongly denied the allegations against him. He claims he did not want to sign the law because he noticed a series of shortcomings.

- I kept the law in my drawer because I was not satisfied with it, and that is the only reason. Even today, I believe the law has shortcomings, but in the end I agreed to sign it because at that moment it was better for such a law to pass than for it to be rejected – said Budimir.

Sources from the Federal Ministry of Interior, however, claim the opposite.

Given that Budimir and his associates were arrested in 2013 for abuse of office and authority, i.e., accepting bribes for illegal pardons, and that an indictment was officially filed in this case last week, the story about keeping the Law on Internal Affairs in the drawer takes on a completely different dimension and was planned long ago.

Allegedly, Budimir, for whom there is evidence that he took bribes for prisoner pardons, was told back then that everything would be arranged and taken care of, i.e., that the case would be dismissed in court and that he would not go to prison, if he delayed the publication of the new law.

Because if he had signed the new Law on Internal Affairs within the legally prescribed deadline, Sead Selman could not have been on the Independent Board, and Dragan Lukač could not have been re-elected to that position.

It is obvious that this case involves a criminal organization, i.e., a well-connected network of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, which, with the help of complicit police officers in high positions, settles scores with its political opponents or provides them with protection, as in Budimir's case.

Soon, Patria will publish the names of the politicians who promised Budimir protection if he blocked the publication of the new law.