Three Years Since Arrest: Indictment Filed Against Kemal Čaušević

Following an extensive investigation, the prosecutor of the Special Department for Organized Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption has filed an indictment against Čaušević Kemal, born in 1966 in Sarajevo, Sadiković Anes, born in 1976 in Prijepolje, and Karić Sedinet, aka “Sido”, born in 1969 in Srebrenik.

The accused are charged with, as the defendant Čaušević, as director of the Indirect Taxation Authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ITA BiH), during 2007, contacting importers of large quantities of textiles from Turkey, China and Hungary into BiH, the defendants Sadiković Anes and Karić Sedinet, who are owners of several legal entities/companies engaged in import, and promising them preferential status during import for their companies, in the form of reduced customs clearance amounts, avoidance of detailed inspections, and acceptance of invoices for which he knew contained inaccurate data, demanding that Sadiković and Karić, as a reciprocal favor, give him the amount of 1,000 KM per imported truck, which the aforementioned agreed to and brought him the money, delivering it at various locations in Sarajevo and Banja Luka.

In this way, multi-million damage was caused to the budget and all citizens of BiH, as the actual customs duties were not collected, and the defendants Sadiković and Karić gave the defendant Čaušević, in the period from 2007 to 2011, for the import of more than 1,700 truckloads of textiles, the amount of 1.72 million KM, specifically Sadiković Anes about 1.2 million, and Karić Sedinet about half a million KM.

Defendant Čaušević Kemal is charged with placing money obtained through criminal offenses, without credit indebtedness, into legal channels by purchasing a number of expensive properties and land in Sarajevo and its surroundings in the amount of about 1.2 million KM. The said properties have been frozen at the request of the Prosecutor's Office and a proposal for the confiscation of property acquired through the commission of criminal offenses has been submitted to the Court of BiH.

Furthermore, defendant Čaušević Kemal is additionally charged with abusing his official position and enabling illegal payment of funds in the amount of about 200,000 KM to companies that participated in the public procurement procedure for printing services of control stickers on security paper, for the needs of ITA BiH, due to alleged damages incurred in the competitive procedure, although there was no actual damage.

The accused are charged with:

- Čaušević Kemal, for the criminal offenses of abuse of official position (Art. 220), money laundering (Art. 209), and receiving gifts and other forms of benefit (Art. 217) of the Criminal Code of BiH

- Sadiković Anes, for the criminal offenses of giving gifts and other forms of benefit (Art. 218) of the Criminal Code of BiH

- Karić Sedinet, for the criminal offenses of giving gifts and other forms of benefit (Art. 218) of the Criminal Code of BiH

The Prosecutor's Office will prove the allegations of the indictment by calling about 50 witnesses and expert witnesses and submitting more than 100 pieces of evidence.

Also, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH continues the investigation against several suspects, including officials of ITA BiH, who are covered by investigative activities within the framework of the Pandora case.