Prosecutor's Office of BiH suspends investigation against Dodik despite public admission of wiretapping opposition

(Patria) - The Prosecutor's Office of BiH has issued an order to suspend the investigation against RS President Milorad Dodik, despite his public statement that he is wiretapping the opposition, writes Transparency International.

This statement was made at the 13th special session of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska (NSRS) on May 20, 2020. Nine days later, after a report by Transparency International in BiH and opposition representatives, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH requested initial checks, but the order to conduct an investigation was issued only in September 2022, after Dodik stated that he was also wiretapping the US Ambassador to BiH.

As the order to conduct an investigation was issued too late, i.e., two years after the criminal offense was reported, according to TI BiH, significant time for evidence collection was lost.

The prosecutorial decision implies that certain evidence could not even be collected, as it is kept for a maximum of one year, which raises the question of why the decision to conduct an investigation was delayed for a full two years?

The Prosecutor's Office states that it has established cooperation with the Intelligence Security Agency (OSA) of BiH, which was given the opportunity to verify these allegations without detailed explanation.

"Also, checks were carried out to determine the possibility of expert examination of a certain server through which lawful telecommunications interception is carried out, in order to determine whether there are recorded communications on it that indicate possible unlawful interception.

The aforementioned checks determined that data is stored on the server for a maximum of one year, and that the extraction of the server for inspection or expert examination is almost impossible because it would jeopardize all investigations in which special investigative actions are currently being carried out.

Namely, lawful communication interception would have to be interrupted, and there is no other server," the prosecutorial decision states.

The decision of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH also implies that numerous witnesses were heard in this case, but not the suspect Dodik.

It should be emphasized that the prosecutor in charge had the opportunity to conduct special investigative actions against the suspect, considering that he was charged with the criminal offense of Unauthorized Wiretapping and Sound or Optical Recording.

However, the decision does not state that these actions were undertaken. TI BiH has filed a complaint with the Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH and pointed out the shortcomings of the specific procedure.

Numerous witnesses were heard in this case, primarily then-opposition MPs Nebojša Vukanović, Draško Stanivuković, Ivanka Marković, Miladin Stanić, Nedeljko Glamočak, Davor Šešić, Milan Tubin, Zoran Vidić, Tomica Stojanović, and Branislav Borenović.

The then Minister of Internal Affairs of RS, Dragan Lukač, was also heard, to whom Dodik addressed during the controversial session when he publicly stated that he was wiretapping opposition MPs, and even conveyed details of allegedly recorded phone conversations.

In the investigation, at the order of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, SIPA was also engaged, which checked, as stated, the activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of RS related to the use of equipment used for conducting special investigative actions "surveillance and recording of technical communications".

Given that Dodik specifically claimed to possess a phone recording of Nebojša Vukanović and Draško Stanivuković, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH issued orders in March this year to the Border Police of BiH, SIPA, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of RS to conduct checks whether the phones of the two then-MPs were subject to special investigative actions from November 2018 to the controversial session in 2020.

However, it is not clear from the decision whether the Prosecutor's Office checked whether the controversial phone conversation was sound recorded.

These three institutions informed the Prosecutor's Office that their phones were not subject to special investigative actions, and from the testimony of the two MPs, the Prosecutor's Office could not conclude whether Dodik's claims referred to the content of the phone conversations of Stanivuković and Vukanović.

From all of this, the Prosecutor's Office concluded that there was not enough evidence that Dodik committed the criminal offense of Unauthorized Wiretapping and Sound or Optical Recording, which is why the investigation was suspended.