Mektić: We have a judicial mafia in BiH

- It wasn't a scandalous escape, but a scandalous decision by the Court that released Alija Delimustafić to freedom and enabled him to flee BiH, said the BiH Security Minister Dragan Mektić on N1 television's show Tačka na 7, writes Patria.

- I suspect there was a deal because it's an unreasonable decision. You have a person who has been found to possess official documents under several false identities. I think he even tried to escape when he was arrested. And then, after 30 days, you lift the detention measure.

This is another confirmation that we do not have responsible people in the prosecution and that we have corrupt judicial officials, who are part of an organized criminal-corrupt group, Mektić explained.

When asked if the escape, or rather the decision to release Alija Delimustafić, was paid for, the Security Minister said:

- I don't have concrete evidence, but it all looks that way to me, because it's not a reasonable decision. An ordinary person, looking at all the circumstances under which he was arrested, the way he committed the crime, the threat that he would succeed in preventing the criminal proceedings by fleeing, possessing documents for a false identity, all indicate that this person is prone to fleeing. And then the judicial panel makes such a decision, which the appellate panel immediately overturned upon the prosecution's appeal, without any deliberation.

We received information from Interpol that he was arrested near Karlovac on his way to Rijeka, and this will now mean a long extradition process.

Mektić pointed out that people from the judiciary are trying to portray his entire narrative as pressure on their work, which he says is untrue.

- The HJPC needs to understand the problems in the judiciary. We have judges on the run, prosecutors in detention, and criminals on the run. Everything is upside down here, and instead of having honorable, honest, serious judicial officials, we have had the last two Chief Prosecutors of BiH removed due to corruption, which is catastrophic for the rule of law. We have judges of the BiH Court against whom proceedings are being conducted due to crime and corruption, a judge on the run to avoid arrest, a scandalous court decision for releasing Delimustafić. This is not an alarm for them.

We do not have a legal state, security, we do not have the rule of law. I don't want to talk about investigations that have been intentionally covered up, from which BiH, from which citizens suffer direct damage because they have been robbed, brought to a state of general poverty, that young people are leaving BiH, that we have created a situation for a group, a political elite, to connect with tycoons and take money through crime, Mektić emphasized.

He also pointed out that at the beginning of his mandate, he was not aware of the extent of crime and corruption within the judiciary itself, and that we literally have a judicial mafia in BiH.

- The prosecution is the weakest link. I am questioning the responsibility of the HJPC because they have reduced themselves to an election and appointment committee. They are not dealing with the efficiency of the prosecution's work. How is it possible that you have a prosecutor in the BiH Prosecutor's Office who has not filed a single indictment in a year. So what were they doing?

These are prosecutors who have no indictments, who deal with easy and minor problems. You cannot assign such a prosecutor a serious case to work on, Mektić stressed.