Mektić: I am not guilty, Mijović and Tadić 'made up' the indictment

(Patria) - Former Minister of Security of BiH and current member of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dragan Mektić pleaded not guilty today at the Court of BiH. He is charged with abuse of office and authority.

"The situation is somehow more confusing every day, so I should cross myself twice today, and three times next time. Everything lasted very briefly. The indictment is based on false, inaccurate, and fabricated things. The indictment mentions a damaged budget, but it is sad that the prosecutor, not even the chief prosecutor Gordan Tadić who signed this indictment, do not know what the budget is," said Mektić.

He added that prosecutor Vedrana Mijović does not know basic things.

"Maybe it suits them to write indictments by making things up," said Mektić.

The indictment, filed by the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, also includes former chief of staff of the Minister of Security of BiH Igor Golijanin, assistant minister in the Ministry of Security of BiH Samir Agić, and Edin Garaplija as the responsible person and owner of the Institute for Fire and Explosion Protection (INZA) Sarajevo. They all also denied guilt.

Adna Dobojlija, attorney for Edin Garaplija, had an objection regarding the submission of evidence.

"The entire case file is not submitted with the indictment. I reviewed the file and noticed that not everything was submitted to us. This is not just the case here. There is evidence that favors my client that was not submitted to us," said Dobojlić, explaining that the indictment is based on illegal evidence.

Garaplija said that this process is the tip of the iceberg and that he will prove how the investigative apparatus is being abused.

"We will quickly show how the MUP (Ministry of Interior) works, raids, blackmails," said Garaplija.

According to the indictment, the aforementioned persons committed the criminal offense of high-level corruption through abuse of office and authority, damaging the international reputation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and various instances of abuse of position or authority by the highest state officials and employees in the Ministry of Security of BiH during the implementation of the interstate Cross-Border Cooperation Project in the field of firefighting, which was financed by the Delegation of the European Union to BiH, with the project value amounting to 198,454.51 euros.
The defense of the accused focused on the indictment itself, claiming that the evidence was obtained illegally, and accusations were heard that this was a staged process.