Croatian company Scout begins seizure: Armed Forces of BiH to lose howitzers, MRLs, mortars...

(Patria) - Three MRLs, 138 assault mortars 60 mm, 1,700,000 rounds of 12.7 mm ammunition, 3.7 million rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, 717 RPG rockets, 70 recoilless guns 82 mm, 61 ZIS guns, a hundred submachine guns, six howitzers…

All of this, and much other weaponry and ammunition, will be seized from the Armed Forces of BiH, based on a Decision of the Court of BiH from December 2019. The seizure has been carried out for several months at the request of the Zagreb-based company SCOUT, based on earlier unimplemented contracts for the delivery of surplus weapons, writes Istraga.ba.

“Part of the ammunition has been seized so far. The larger part comes from surpluses, i.e., non-perspective weapons and ammunition, while the other, smaller part was taken from our regular warehouses,” confirmed for Istraga.ba the Minister of Defence of BiH, Sifet Podžić.

So far, documents in possession of Istraga show, only ammunition has been seized, with an average age of 37 years. Over two million rounds of 7.62 mm calibre have been seized.

The ammunition that SCOUT has seized so far has been transferred to the warehouse of Binas in Bugojno. It was taken from the warehouses of the Armed Forces in Daljani near Donji Vakuf and the warehouse in Krupa near Hadžići.

Let us recall, the Zagreb-based company Scout signed contracts about twenty years ago with the entity ministries of defence for the purchase of surplus weapons. After the Ministry of Defence of BiH was established and the entity ministries abolished, the state of BiH became the legal successor to these contracts. However, the contracts were not honoured. The Ministry of Defence of BiH, with Selmo Cikotić at its head, concluded annexes to the earlier contracts with Scout in 2010. Cikotić is currently on trial for signing the annexes to the disputed contracts. Despite the annexes, the Zagreb-based company filed a lawsuit against BiH for non-fulfilment of the earlier contracts, and in 2017 the Court of BiH issued a ruling establishing that the Ministry of Defence of BiH must deliver weapons and ammunition worth 20 million KM to SCOUT. In December 2019, the ruling became final and the Court of BiH issued an enforcement order, i.e., a seizure in favour of Scout.

“Based on the final and enforceable ruling of the Court of BiH, enforcement is ordered against the debtor BiH, the Ministry of Defence, for the delivery of movable property,” stated the enforcement order of the Court of BiH.

The seizure, as we said, began two months ago. SCOUT has also seized part of the ammunition in the barracks of the Armed Forces in Doboj and Glamoč. These are 106 mm rockets. They have been declared unstable. Nevertheless, representatives of Scout took them at their own risk and transported them to the Binas warehouse in Bugojno, which, as we learn, does not meet the conditions for storing this type of ammunition.

The Ministry of Defence of BiH, we have confirmed, sent a written warning to the Government of the Federation of BiH and the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Industry stating that storing “unstable rockets” in Binas could be very dangerous. However, Minister Nermin Džindić and Prime Minister Fadil Novalić have not commented on this case.

Istraga.ba attempted on Thursday to contact Abaz Mandžuka, the director of Binas, but he refused our calls. In any case, the “unstable rockets” are still in Bugojno, and for Scout to export them from BiH, it needs approvals from the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Security of BiH, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, and the Intelligence-Security Agency of BiH. If any of these institutions does not give its consent, Scout will not be able to export the seized weapons from BiH.