UNDER KREŠTALICA'S DIRECTION, SKAKA ARRESTED FOR DISTRIBUTING MONEY TO ASSOCIATIONS, WHILE NO INVESTIGATION AGAINST OKERIĆ (NIP)!

(Patria) - What is a criminal offense for SDA's Abdulah Skaka is not a criminal offense for NiP's Elvedin Okerić. This, in short, is the logic of the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office, which on August 9 this year made a decision not to conduct an investigation against the President of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly for distributing budget funds to associations founded by People and Justice cadres, writes istraga.ba.

“We inform you that on August 9, 2024, the Prosecutor's Office made an Order not to conduct an investigation against Okrerić Elvedin, for the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority under Article 383, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH, because it is evident from the report and accompanying files that the reported act is not a criminal offense,” stated Cantonal Prosecutor Sead Kreštalica in his decision.

Decision of Sead Kreštalica

Let's pay attention to a few details from the published notification. Prosecutor Kreštalica writes that based on the “report and accompanying files” he concluded that Okerić did not commit a criminal offense. Therefore, the disciplinarily punished prosecutor Sead Kreštalica, without taking any action, concluded that Okerić's allocation of several hundred thousand marks to associations founded by People and Justice cadres is not a criminal offense.

Furthermore, in the notification sent to the Office for the Fight against Corruption, which was published by Elvedin Okerić and Elmedin Konaković, although it was not even delivered to them, prosecutor Kreštalica did not state that the Office, as the complainant, has the right to appeal the decision, as stipulated by the Law on Criminal Procedure of the Federation of BiH.

“The prosecutor will inform the injured party and the complainant of the non-implementation of the investigation, as well as the reasons for it, within three days. The injured party and the complainant have the right to file a complaint with the prosecutor's office within eight days,” it is stated in Article 231 of the Law on Criminal Procedure of the Federation of BiH.

ZKP FBiH

Prosecutor Sead Kreštalica has been the Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office for years. As of June 13 this year, he was transferred to the General Crime Department. Upon transfer, he insisted on keeping several cases from the economic crime and corruption department. Among these cases was the one concerning the President of the Assembly, Elvedin Okerić. Two months later, Kreštalica issues an order not to conduct an investigation against Okerić, without having taken any concrete prosecutorial action. Incidentally, Sead Kreštalica is known for “closing cases,” for which he was disciplinarily punished.

“Hey, we finished all that. Only this is left, and then we'll do this,” Sead Kreštalica would say in a phone conversation with the mother of Sarajevo criminal Mirza Hatić, against whom he was prosecuting an indictment filed in 2008.

Before the conversation with his mother, Kreštalica, in the presence of witnesses, also spoke with Mirza Hatić's father in a cafe about this case. He then said that he would “remove two counts from the indictment” against this Sarajevo criminal, whose name appears at least 20 times in criminal records. Hatić, among other things, was convicted of attempted murder, endangering security, extortion, illegal possession of weapons, and organized crime.

Disciplinary penalty against Sead Kreštalica

However, before Kreštalica took concrete steps, the Disciplinary Prosecutor's Office of the HJPC reacted, and in 2011, it requested the dismissal of prosecutor Kreštalica. By the decision of the First Instance Disciplinary Commission from October 2011, Kreštalica was suspended until the end of the proceedings, but in April 2012, the Second Instance Commission of the HJPC overturned the suspension decision, and the prosecutor was punished with a 20 percent salary reduction for one year.

Now, let's get to the merits. Here's why the Office for the Fight against Corruption sent a report to the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office against Elvedin Okerić.

Namely, at least 200,000 marks from the Sarajevo Canton Budget were allocated to civil associations founded by People and Justice cadres. Around 140,000 KM of budget funds were allocated to an association in Srebrenica founded by the leaders of the NiP municipal board in Srebrenica, while 70,000 KM were allocated to an association founded by the NiP federal minister for labor and social policy, Adnan Delić. Here are the details and evidence.

At this link from the Sarajevo Canton Government portal, it was announced on October 5 last year that the President of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, Elvedin Okerić, allocated 400,000 marks for sustainable return projects in Republika Srpska.

“The civil association 'Argentarija' from Srebrenica was allocated 88,000 KM to support the Sustainable Return project in the Municipality of Srebrenica,” stated the official announcement of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly. On the list of founders of this Association are Azem Alić, Nedim Ademović, Sejdalija Suljić, Senajid Ademović. The President of the Association is Sejdalija Suljić, while the contact phone number of the Association is 061471799. The same number is listed on the page of the NiP Municipal Board in Srebrenica. You can read the Istraga article from last October here.

So, for prosecutor Kreštalica, this has no elements of a criminal offense. Now we return to the case of Abdulah Skaka. The former mayor of Sarajevo was first arrested, and then taken to the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office with his hands tied behind his back on suspicion of having distributed a significantly smaller amount of money to associations close to him than Elvedin Okerić did. Here is part of the confirmed indictment against Skaka.

“Skaka Abdulah, on March 19, 2018, in the area of the city of Sarajevo, acting in his capacity as an official, within the meaning of Article 2, Paragraph (3) of the Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the Mayor of the City of Sarajevo... with the intention of providing a benefit of 20,000.00 KM (twenty thousand convertible marks) to the Mountain Biking Association '...' from Mostar, by knowingly violating the regulations concerning the disposal of funds from the current budget reserve of the City of Sarajevo, which he intended, even though he was aware and knew that Article 23, Paragraph (2) of the Decision on the Execution of the Budget of the City of Sarajevo for 2018 ('Official Gazette of the Canton of Sarajevo', No. 1/18) stipulated that the distribution of current reserve funds could only be realized in accordance with the Rulebook on Criteria for the Use of Funds from the Current Reserve of the Budget of the City of Sarajevo ('Official Gazette of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina', No. 60/13), according to which Article 2 of the Rulebook on Criteria for the Use of Funds from the Current Reserve of the Budget of the City of Sarajevo stipulated that budget reserve funds can be allocated for projects that will improve the situation for a larger number of citizens over individual requests, solving problems that can cause greater consequences for the community, interventions in any area of social and economic life, which for the City of Sarajevo means not only promotion but also improvement or progress in the area where financial intervention is necessary, and for expenses that are insufficiently planned in the budget of the City of Sarajevo or could not be foreseen during the planning and preparation of the Budget, or Article 3 of the same Rulebook, which stipulates that budget reserve funds can be allocated for interventions in case of natural and other disasters (floods, storms, fires, earthquakes, etc.), serious traffic accidents; interventions in the area of social security of the citizens of the City and wider, and other matters that can be classified as urgent interventions, used his authority stipulated by Article 4 of the Rulebook on Criteria for the Use of Funds from the Current Reserve of the Budget of the City of Sarajevo, according to which the funds of the current budget reserve will be realized based on the decision of the mayor, and Article 23, Paragraph (3) of the Decision on the Execution of the Budget of the City of Sarajevo for 2018, according to which the mayor decides on the use of current reserve funds, contrary to Article 11 of the Decision on the Establishment of the City of Sarajevo Legal Protection Office ('Official Gazette of the Canton of Sarajevo', No. 20/10, 30/15, and 12/17), which stipulates obtaining a legal opinion from the City of Sarajevo Legal Protection Office for all disposals over 10,000.00 KM, which was not obtained, thus, knowingly and intentionally, he misused his official position by, after receiving the 'Request for co-financing of the project' from the Mountain Biking Association '...' from Mostar on February 9, 2018, registered under Sarajevo City protocol number '...' of February 9, 2018, making the Decision on the approval of current budget reserve funds No. '...' of March 19, 2018, by which monetary funds in the amount of 20,000.00 KM were approved to the Mountain Biking Association '...' from Mostar”.

Therefore, when Abdulah Skaka distributed money to associations, he was arrested. When Elvedin Okerić distributed money to NiP associations, it was not a criminal offense.