Spectacular arrests of defenders are in vogue

 

News of the day - SIPA arrested lawyer Ibri Merkez, BPK police commissioner Ešef Hurić and wartime commander of the defense of Goražde Ahmet Sejdić in Sarajevo and Goražde on suspicion of committing war crimes.

Everything was done in five minutes by order of the BiH Prosecutor's Office.

Not the first or the last arrest. However, some "trifles" cannot be overlooked. They are simply glaring.

Why must spectacular arrests be carried out against people who are available to the BiH Prosecutor's Office at any moment - Merkez, as a lawyer, is constantly in courtrooms, Hurić is the chief of police of BPK, and Sejdić is not going anywhere from BiH?

Can't the BiH Prosecutor's Office simply send an invitation, which they would certainly respond to, given that investigations against them have been ongoing for some time and they have undoubtedly already given statements about the events and circumstances for which they are accused?

Naser Orić's arrest in the middle of Switzerland was also carried out as a spectacle, as if it suited someone in the BiH Prosecutor's Office. Because that same Prosecutor's Office only later confirmed that they were conducting an investigation against the wartime commander of Srebrenica, which Orić himself heard for the first time when he was extradited to BiH.

Let's recall the spectacle put on for the public when the late general Mehmed Alagić was arrested in Sanski Most. His heart broke from grief after being handcuffed.

Everything is done according to a well-established pattern. Does someone need spectacles? Does someone need news about the arrests of defenders for the front pages? Someone is scoring points, and the arrested individuals are already stigmatized in public opinion even before the trial.

And what happens when these people are proven innocent and released? That news passes almost unnoticed in the media and public.

The only thing remembered are the arrests.

Will anyone from the Prosecutor's Office be held accountable for the disgrace inflicted upon those who prove their innocence? Regardless of whether they are cleared of guilt, the stain remains on their reputation, because the noise and disgrace of the arrests have overshadowed everything and nothing will wash it away.

Unfortunately, knowing how things work in this country, there will be no accountability.

Accountability is a concept unknown in BiH. Because, if state prosecutors, in addition to generously using their rights and privileges, paid the same attention to that magical word, everything would be different.

Indictments wouldn't fall like ripe pears, or in that case, they would withdraw from their prosecutorial positions or be dismissed by the HJPC.

A state of law from Monday! Until then, unemployed people, pensioners with meager incomes, and youth who want to leave BiH, enjoy the cinematic arrests of defenders! And those you voted for would rather raise their hand for the Chetnik duke Nikola Poplašen than comment on the shameful detention of their former comrades-in-arms.