NADIN CASE: Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office without response to Amine Smajlović's complaint regarding non-investigation

SARAJevo, (Patria) – The Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office, headed by Chief Prosecutor Sabina Sarajlija, has not responded to the complaint and request filed by Maida Galijatović, lawyer for Amine Smajlović, mother of minor Nadin Smajlović, even after a month, regarding the decision not to investigate the report filed in November 2019. Smajlović had then reported KCUS Director Sebija Izetbegović and ten pediatricians from the KCUS Pediatric Clinic for failure to provide medical assistance to her child and for revealing professional secrets.

“The complaint to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office was submitted within the legally prescribed period, in which we objected to the prosecutor’s decision not to investigate. The moment a prosecutor has sufficient grounds to open an investigation, criminal proceedings begin with the opening of an investigation. The prosecutor took it upon herself to decide that there are apparently no elements of a criminal offense,” Galijatović told Patria.

In addition to the complaint, lawyer Galijatović requested that the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office provide them with the statement given by Amina Smajlović during her hearing at the Prosecutor's Office. She confirmed that they have no information, and although the law does not prescribe a deadline for the Prosecutor's Office to respond, they expected a response within a reasonable time, given the entire case and public interest.

“The law stipulates that if this decision is confirmed, we have the right to request the Federal Prosecutor's Office to review the prosecutor’s decision, as it has supervisory authority over the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office,” said Galijatović.

Prosecutor Sanela Škaljić, who issued the Order on Non-Investigation against Edo Hasanbegović, KCUS Director Sebija Izetbegović, Danka Pokrajac, Zija Begić, Snježana Hasanbegović, Melika Melunović, Ferihа Ćatibušić-Hadžagić, Ismeta Kalkan, Verica Mišanović, Meliha Salkić, Sajra Užičanin, believes that the reported act is not a criminal offense.

The prosecutor believes that the KCUS doctors did not commit a criminal offense because minor Nadin Smajlović was not sent abroad, but rather the Rulebook on the conditions and procedure for sending insured persons for treatment abroad is legally vague, which doctors and medical staff cannot influence.

Regarding the public statement where KCUS Director Sebija Izetbegović said that no one would treat the child, the prosecutor considers it a “hypothetical statement” and that there are no elements of the criminal offense of failure to provide medical assistance.

Even in the open letter issued by KCUS on November 18, 2019, in which they revealed the girl's diagnosis and identity, and which they published on the official KCUS website and sent to the media, the prosecutor sees no elements of a criminal offense.

The prosecutor believes that the girl's father had already presented the facts mentioned in the KCUS open letter in media appearances on November 12, and that these were not unknown facts.

“The open letter from the doctors led to a violation of the child's personal data, and the mentioned document could not and should not have been on the official website of that institution in such a form and content, for which reasons its removal was ordered (Agency for Protection of Personal Data); however, considering the previously explained reasons, the essential elements of the criminal offense of disclosure of professional secrets were not met.”