Indictment of the TK Prosecutor's Office against Tuzla Quartz and a Worker Dropped

The Center for Responsible Democracy (COD) Luna - Advisory Center for Whistleblower Protection informs the public that on December 22, 2016, at the Municipal Court in Tuzla, during the main hearing, the judge of the Municipal Court in Tuzla issued a first-instance acquittal, rejecting the indictment of the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office of TK against Tuzla Quartz and Smajil Velagić as the responsible person, based on the indictment filed on June 16, 2015, for the alleged criminal offense of aggravated theft due to exploitation of quartz sand without a signed concession contract, Patria reports.

The first-instance acquittal demonstrates what COD Luna and a large number of international whistleblower protection experts have claimed from the beginning: that the indictment against the company Tuzla Quartz was an act of revenge by the chief cantonal prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić, who filed an unfounded, unsubstantiated, and tendentious indictment with the aim of disciplining a whistleblower, thereby triggering a cascade of negative events for 35 workers/miners of this company, which culminated in March 2016 with the miners' threat to commit suicide by jumping from a 35-meter-high silo in order to stop harmful measures against the corruption reporter.

We recall that after the company Tuzla Quartz reported to the BH Prosecutor's Office an attempt to extort a bribe by the Assistant Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining of TK, Bahir Imamović, and also reported the aforementioned prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić for obstruction in processing the corruption report, Bahir Imamović was arrested by SIPA. However, at that moment, the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office of TK was abused to turn its focus against the corruption reporter, instead of investigating and prosecuting the entire corruption scheme in the area of concessions in Tuzla Canton.

COD Luna again calls on the Office of the Disciplinary Prosecutor of the HJPC of BiH to initiate proceedings against prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić, because such abuse of position and unprofessional behavior create legal uncertainty, threaten the existence of the economy, send a negative image, and are the greatest threat to new investments, economic development, and overall freedoms in BiH. We take this opportunity to commend the professionalism and independence of the Municipal Court judge who ruled in accordance with law and justice, demonstrating professionalism and independence by evaluating only the evidence, which indicates that the judicial system in BiH is threatened by irresponsible individuals, while there are still enough honest and moral professionals who create optimism that reform of the judicial system is possible.

Video about the Tuzla Quartz case