Our Party: SDA not bothered by the war past of criminal Marko Maka Radić

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Five votes each from HDZ and SNSD could not stop the dismissal of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Minister of Justice Josip Grubeša at yesterday's session of the House of Representatives, as seven votes from SDA proved decisive, voting against this initiative signed by representatives of seven parties in the state parliament.

"It does not surprise me that SDA deputies are not bothered by Grubeša's failure to cooperate with the Investigation Commission, because Adil Osmanović asked us to end our work earlier, nor by his failure to submit laws, since SDA ministers do the same, but it is incomprehensible that SDA gave active support to a man who enabled convicted war criminal Marko Maka Radić to shorten his prison sentence, or who does not allow the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be entered into the state register," emphasized Damir Arnaut.

According to the verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Radić participated in the formation of a prison, ordered the arrest and detention of dozens of Bosniak civilians, women, children, and the elderly, and participated in crimes in the camp. At the end of 2018, Grubeša approved Radić's request to serve his sentence in Croatia. Although Radić was supposed to be in prison until 2027, the County Court in Zagreb reduced his sentence to 12 years because joint criminal enterprise is not recognized in Croatia.

"This did not only benefit Radić, but the entire institute of JCE was deliberately challenged," Arnaut pointed out.

Our Party also condemns the cancellation of the emergency session scheduled for Saturday at our initiative, where the directors of the Public Procurement Agency and the Agency for Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina were supposed to present clear guidelines for the direct procurement of vaccines. All parties that voted to cancel this session – including opposition parties from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – justified this by the adoption of amendments to the public procurement law and the medicines law yesterday.

These parties, however, did not provide a solution for vaccine procurement until these laws are adopted in the House of Peoples. Given the strict deadlines, these laws cannot come into force before March 22, and it is questionable whether they will pass the House of Peoples at all. Namely, since Wednesday, the Council of Ministers' Public Procurement Law, which the European Commission insisted on, is in parliamentary procedure, and this law – which does not address direct vaccine procurement – will take precedence. It is incomprehensible that these parties ignored all these details and canceled the Saturday session, which would have allowed different levels of government to immediately start vaccine procurement without waiting for the already uncertain law amendments.