Ćavar: Bevanda is wrong, warning about BiH has already been received by 30 countries!

Moneyval has already warned all its members that BiH does not respect international standards in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, and this warning will not be possible to withdraw before September this year, said Mladen Ćavar, Deputy Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the Bosnian news agency Patria (NAP).

According to his words, through the activities of the BiH diplomatic network, it was only negotiated with Moneyval that such a warning would not be distributed through the other international network, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which also includes non-European countries, before June 7 this year.

- The situation is by no means harmless. The BiH Ministry of Foreign Affairs managed to lobby so that the situation does not become further complicated and that FATF does not publish a warning about BiH in the next few days. However, the damage has already been done, and all member states of Moneyval have received the statement published on June 1 by the plenum of that body. Only the Moneyval plenum can withdraw it, and the next one is scheduled for September, says Ćavar.

He reacted to the claims of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, Vjekoslav Bevanda, who stated yesterday that the matter was manipulated and that the deadline was not even June 1. However, Ćavar claims the opposite and provides documentation confirming this. The Patria agency was given access to a letter from Jan Kleijseen, the director of Moneyval, stating that the warning about BiH has already been distributed to members.

- Moneyval has already warned all its 30 members about BiH and requested that by July 7 they submit information to Strasbourg on whether and what measures they have taken regarding this warning. Sanctions are an individual decision of each country. By extending the deadline for FATF, we gained time to adopt the law and prevent further distribution of the warning through the global network, explains Ćavar.

 

Facsimile of the letter sent by Moneyval to Bevanda: It clearly states that the warning about BiH was sent to all members