Mostar resident Hasan Pašić (75): I've been repaying a loan I never took out for six years

After more than six years, the trial of former employee of the microcredit organization LOK Selma Husić and her sister Tajma Gosto, who are accused of defrauding at least thirty residents of Mostar as guarantors or loan holders, has still not concluded, reports the Patria agency.

They are charged with forging documents, taking out loans in the names of friends, acquaintances, and even people they did not know at all, and then “disappearing” with the money. They later reappeared, empty-handed. The sisters denied involvement in the entire affair.

While two proceedings are ongoing in court regarding this case – one civil and one criminal – dozens of residents of Mostar are regularly repaying loans to LOK, which they mostly claim they never even took out.

Hasan Pašić (75) told the Patria news agency that 155 KM has been deducted from his pension of 326 KM every month for six years, all for a non-existent loan. After that loan is deducted, he will have to repay another. The banks, as well as the state, show no mercy towards him, nor towards dozens of other Mostar residents.

- They told me that I took out two loans at LOK. One for 7,000 and another for 7,500 KM. When I received the first warning, I was 68 years old. Today I am 75 years old. From then until now, I have been left without half my pension every month – says Pašić.

- I will die, and I will not repay that loan. And who the debt will be transferred to after that, I do not know.

The media reported that after committing the crime, the sisters fled to their aunt in Frankfurt, but were arrested six months later in Mostar. The victims began receiving notices from LOK to pay the installments. Večernji reported that among them there are even unemployed and socially vulnerable individuals.

The sisters used various methods to obtain loans. Some agreed to be their guarantors because, as they state, they trusted them, but there were also those who gave their personal ID cards, which, according to the indictment, Husić abused through LOK by listing them as guarantors for other people. It is suspected that she even forged other people's signatures.

Throughout this affair, all these years, only the defrauded citizens have suffered, writes Patria.