Prosecutor's Office of BiH seeks restrictive measures for journalist Miljanović-Zubac and two police officers of the Border Police of BiH

(Patria) - The Prosecutor's Office of BiH has proposed to the Court of BiH the imposition of restrictive measures for journalist Nataša Zubac-Miljanović, and officers of the Border Police of BiH Sanja Kriještorac and Andrea Mujkić, Istraga.ba has learned. They are suspected of having committed the criminal offense of disclosing official secrets.

The acting state prosecutor Sanita Imamović proposed to the Court that the journalist from Trebinje be ordered a measure prohibiting contact with witnesses in this criminal proceeding, a travel ban, and mandatory reporting to the police. For the officers of the Border Police of BiH, prosecutor Imamović proposed imposing a measure prohibiting contact with witnesses in this criminal proceeding, a travel ban, mandatory reporting to the police, as well as a ban on performing duties in the Border Police of BiH. The Court of BiH should rule on this proposal no later than next week.

If the Prosecutor's Office's proposal is accepted and restrictive measures are imposed on journalist Nataša Zubac-Miljanović, it will be a precedent in BiH judiciary. Namely, as a basic prerequisite for imposing restrictive measures, it is necessary for the Court to establish the existence of reasonable suspicion. In this case, the Court of BiH would, if it accepts the proposal of prosecutor Imamović, establish that there is reasonable suspicion that the journalist committed the criminal offense of disclosing official secrets. This would open the possibility for prosecuting all journalists in BiH who publish confidential information.

We remind you that members of the Border Police of BiH arrested journalist Nataša Zubac-Miljanović last Thursday on suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of disclosing official secrets. The search of her home was carried out based on an oral order from the Court of BiH, and the acting prosecutor did not inform the preliminary proceedings judge Tatjana Kosović that the target of the operation was a journalist. The day after the arrest, journalist Zubac-Miljanović was released. According to documents from the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, journalist Nataša Miljanović-Zubac committed the criminal offense of disclosing official secrets because she sent an email to embassies of Western countries in Sarajevo in which she criticized the work of police and judicial institutions in BiH. Attached to that email, Zubac-Miljanović also sent a photograph of a document from the Border Police of BiH, which was allegedly photographed on the premises of the Border Police of BiH. The case was initiated after the German Embassy forwarded the "disputed email" to the Border Police, which informed the Prosecutor's Office of BiH about everything. The case was assigned to prosecutor Sanita Imamović, who is under the direct control of state prosecutor Džermin Pašić, about whose suspicious dealings journalist Nataša Zubac-Miljanović had written extensively.

Istraga.ba is in possession of two orders from the Prosecutor's Office of BiH that established the practice that journalists cannot be criminally prosecuted for disclosing official secrets. One case concerns the editorial office of "Raport", and the other concerns the editor of Istraga.ba, Avdo Avdić. In both cases, an order not to conduct an investigation was issued. However, how this practice changed when it comes to Nataša Zubac-Miljanović is a question that must be answered by the Deputy Chief State Prosecutor Džermin Pašić, who has saved at least four major drug dealers from criminal prosecution. One of them is Admir Arnautović Šmrk.