Prosecutor's Office of BiH dissatisfied with inconsistent practice of the Court of BiH, one year in prison for transporting 596 kg of drugs!

(Patria) - In the information prepared by the Prosecutor's Office of BiH for 2022, which will be discussed at the session of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the issue of inconsistent judicial practice in imposing criminal sanctions in the same or similar cases of organized crime is problematized.

The Prosecutor's Office of BiH states that the practice varies from one judicial panel to another.

Thus, as an example, they cite the verdict S1 2K 036587 20 K of November 29, 2022, where the defendant received one year in prison for transporting 596 kilograms of narcotic drugs.

“On the other hand, panels that justifiably take a rigorous stance do not accept the agreements of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH with much higher proposed sentences in situations where a smaller amount of drugs was transported, i.e., when the defendants' contribution to the commission of criminal offenses was smaller,” the Prosecutor's Office of BiH states.

Prosecutor Džermin Pašić filed an indictment against four individuals, and for two of them, it also included the criminal offense of Organized Crime under Article 250, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CC BiH) in conjunction with the criminal offense of Unauthorized Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs under Article 195, paragraph 1 of the same Code.

The Court of BiH acquitted two defendants of organized crime and sentenced them to one year each for unauthorized trafficking in narcotic drugs. The time spent in custody is included in their sentences, so ultimately the sentence is less than one year.

As stated in the verdict, the Prosecutor's Office did not prove that the defendants committed the aforementioned criminal offenses.

The two convicted individuals were found in a truck in which 596 kg of marijuana intended for the German market was discovered. In January 2019, the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) stopped the truck at the customs terminal, where the drugs, packed in shoeboxes, were found.