COMMENT: Is the Prosecutor's Office Covering Up the Border Police Scandal?

Written by: Armin Aljović

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Officers Muamer Fazlagić, Edin Smailagić and Zdenko Šanje have been reinstated to their positions in the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after having previously been suspended due to the disappearance of equipment and ammunition from the BP warehouse, even though these are the officers who uncovered the scandal. 

The Head of the Covert Operations Department in the BP, Muamer Fazlagić, the Inspector for Investigations in the Central Investigation Bureau, Eldin Smailagić, and the then Head of the Investigations Department in the BP, Zdenko Šanje, along with several other BP officers, have been repeatedly subjected to disciplinary commissions after reporting that valuable police equipment, such as optical rifle sights, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition, had gone missing from the Border Police warehouse. Is it said that 30,000 rounds of ammunition are missing from the BP warehouse?

The first internal disciplinary proceeding in the Border Police regarding the disappearance of material and technical assets from the BP was conducted against the then Chief of the Central Investigation Bureau of the BP, Semir Pašanbegović, the Head of the Covert Operations Department, Muamer Fazlagić, and Edin Mulaomerović, an inspector for covert operations. As things currently stand, Pašanbegović and Mulaomerović could be amnestied from further investigation, while responsibility is being sought from Fazlagić, Smailagić and Šanje.

When asked by the Border Police whether Fazlagić, Smailagić and Šanje have been reinstated to their jobs in the BP BiH, and whether this means they are no longer being charged with responsibility in the case of the missing ammunition and equipment, the BP responded: „In accordance with the Law on Personal Data Protection, the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot answer questions in which the names and surnames of officers of this police agency are mentioned. In addition, we inform you that the Border Police of BiH is conducting additional activities regarding the disappearance of equipment and ammunition according to the order of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, and that a certain number of proceedings to determine the disciplinary responsibility of police officers of the BP BiH are still ongoing. In this regard, we are unable to inform you of the final outcome and status of the investigation being conducted under the supervision of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, as the final decision on the case will be made by the said authority. The same applies to the disciplinary proceedings that are still ongoing, as commenting on them would prejudge the decisions of the competent disciplinary bodies.“

Although I do not sufficiently understand the procedure of the work of security agencies in BiH, and even less the system of disciplinary responsibility, even as a complete layman, in this very general and imprecise response from the Border Police, several illogicalities can be discerned. For example, if the Border Police is the accused institution, the object of the action in which the failure regarding the disappearance of equipment and ammunition occurred, how is it possible that „the Border Police of BiH is conducting additional activities regarding the disappearance of equipment and ammunition according to the order of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH“, instead of the entire case being taken over by the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), and the Border Police being sidelined until the investigation is concluded? 

After the scandal was uncovered, the Border Police announced: „In one organizational unit, it was determined that parts of the equipment from the weapons were missing. Given the established deficiency, the Director of the Border Police, Zoran Galić, formed an extraordinary inventory commission for material and technical assets and equipment, which confirmed that parts of the equipment from the weapons were missing.“ The behavior of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH in this case resembles, for example, the Tax Administration receiving information that Konzum is hiding 30 million KM in taxes from the state, and then the Tax Administration hiring Todorić to investigate the entire case, with the assistance of his two chief advisors, and two independent workers, one from the ranks of cashiers and the other from the ranks of cleaners. So, how is it that the Prosecutor's Office allows the Border Police to participate in the investigation into the disappearance of ammunition from the Border Police warehouse if the investigation concerns the Border Police itself? What if, for example, Border Police officers conducting some internal checks determine that the disappearance of ammunition and equipment from the Border Police is the responsibility of, say, the Director of the Border Police himself, Zoran Galić? Will they conceal that information or will they submit it to the Prosecutor's Office? 

In fact, the matter is quite clear - no one can a priori know who is guilty in this whole mess, until the Prosecutor's Office investigates the entire case. But from the very beginning, it is evident that the investigation is going in the wrong direction and that the Prosecutor's Office wants to protect certain individuals from responsibility. For example, how is it that the Prosecutor's Office knows that Director Galić is not directly responsible for the disappearance of equipment and ammunition? It would be entirely logical for the Prosecutor's Office to have also suspected the officers who could have had contact with the missing ammunition and equipment, and Galić himself. All of them together would have had the opportunity to prove their innocence during the court process.

Or, if Fazlagić, Smailagić and Šanje were suspended from their positions due to suspicion that they committed certain omissions regarding the disappearance of MTS, or some other omissions, how is it possible that they were reinstated, if „a certain number of proceedings to determine the disciplinary responsibility of police officers of the BP BiH are still ongoing.“

The equipment and ammunition from the Border Police disappeared at the end of 2017, or at least that is when it was noticed that these material and technical assets were missing from the BP warehouse. Galić informed the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina about the case only after media pressure in April 2018. A year later, prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Biljana Simeunović, is still working on this case, without any information about the entire case being available to the media, even the superfluous information that „the investigation is ongoing“. Given that the media have previously written about the involvement of prosecutor Simeunović in the „Diploma“ affair, that Slobodna Dalmacija published an article about Galić's suspicious diploma from the Faculty of Service Activities in Sremska Kamenica, about the connection between the Chief State Prosecutor Gordana Tadić and Galić with the top of the HDZ, why, for example, should we not have the right to suspect that prosecutor Simeunović and Galić agreed to exclude SIPA from the investigation into the disappearance of MTS, that the Prosecutor's Office would close the case in a way that amnesties Galić from any responsibility, and that afterwards they would gradually start preparing the ground to „break the wheel“ only on a few officers.

The entire case regarding the disappearance of equipment and ammunition from the Border Police is being attempted to be reduced to a problem of one or more persons involved in this individual case, but it reveals much more than that, namely that those who embezzled the ammunition and equipment from the Border Police, those in the Border Police who are covering up those responsible for this scandal, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH which protects the top people of the Border Police, and the politics that protects the Prosecutor's Office, are all actually acting as one interconnected criminal organization?

Who is Zoran Galić and why are some officials in BiH untouchable for the judiciary and yet always in top positions in the state? For example, according to the recently published ranking list of the most successful candidates for the director of the Federal Police Administration, Zoran Galić is in first place. So, there is no obstacle to appointing a man, under whose mandate the Border Police of BiH was shaken by one of the biggest scandals in the history of that agency, to the position of the top man of the FUP?