COMMENT: Election of FUP Director or Selection of a Policeman for All Occasions

Written by Amra Varatanović 

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Of the eight registered candidates for the director of the Federal Police Administration, six are Croats and two are Bosniaks. Given that the current Minister of Interior of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aljoša Čampara, is a Bosniak, this automatically means that only candidates of Croatian nationality remain in the running for the FUP director. This is also stipulated by the Law on Internal Affairs. The FUP director and the minister cannot be from the same ethnic group.

Among those who applied for the top position at FUP are the current heads of two state police agencies: Zoran Galić, director of the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ivica Bošnjak, deputy director of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies. Among the applicants is also the current police commissioner of the West Herzegovina Canton, Milan Galić, who is related to Zoran Galić. Also applying is Robert Perić, head of the Field Office South Čapljina of the Border Police of BiH, who, through his brother's wife, is connected to HDZ president Dragan Čović.

Other applicants include Zoran Čegar, head of the Uniformed Police Sector of the Federal Police Administration, Ensad Korman (meanwhile appointed as deputy director of FUP), Mustafa Hujdurović, an FUP inspector, and Ljuban Frljić, head of the Operational Center of the MUP SBK Travnik.

In 2018, the director of the Border Police of BiH, Zoran Galić, had his four-year mandate renewed in that state agency, after previously serving four years at the helm of the Border Police. A year later, he applied for the director position at FUP. Before the Border Police, Galić was the police commissioner of the West Herzegovina Canton. It all looks as if politics has its own set of the same policemen, whom it deploys in various agencies as needed.

What are Galić's credentials for such high positions in the security structures of Bosnia and Herzegovina? If Galić is elected to head FUP, he will leave the Border Police of BiH burdened with many mortgages. The Prosecutor's Office and SIPA are still investigating the disappearance of a large quantity of ammunition and police equipment from Border Police warehouses. Media in BiH and Croatia previously reported that Galić has a fake university diploma from Serbia. That news has not been denied to this day. Reports about compromised competitions for the admission of new cadets to the Border Police have also not been denied. Presidents of victims' associations accused Galić of allowing members of the Ravna Gora Chetnik movement to enter Višegrad unhindered during the weekend, while numerous illogicalities were recorded in the work of the border police during the migrant crisis that hit BiH.

Galić was the police commissioner of the MUP of West Herzegovina Canton when, in October 2009, during fan riots in Široki Brijeg, FK Sarajevo fan Vedran Puljić was killed. Although witnesses claimed that Puljić was killed by a policeman with a pistol in the general chaos, this was never proven, but no alternative arguments were offered either. Puljić's death remains unresolved to this day.

Heads of police agencies in BiH move from one agency to another, leaving behind considerable disorder. Could it happen that Galić moves from the Border Police to FUP and thus escapes responsibility? Or is he just a pawn for party needs?