Constitutional Court of BiH: No grounds for detention of Lijanovićs

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has ruled that there were no grounds for detaining the Ivanković Lijanović brothers and others when they were arrested on September 10, 2014, and that there were violations of the BiH Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the part of the BiH Court's decision that ordered their detention, reports the BiH news agency Patria.

The explanation of the Constitutional Court's decision states, "the Constitutional Court notes that the explanation of the detention reason related to escape was made in a perfunctory and general manner, without any concretization of reasons in relation to the suspects." The Constitutional Court of BiH states in its decision, "that the BiH Court did not provide relevant and sufficient reasons in relation to the appellants individually in the explanation of the contested decisions, and that it is necessary to order detention based on that legal ground."

Also, "the BiH Court did not provide sufficient evidence that the suspects would continue to commit criminal offenses if released."

Such a decision was received today by the lawyers of the suspects, Nada Dalipagić and Davor Šilić, and it is the result of an appeal filed with the Constitutional Court of BiH on 09/26/2014, against the decision of the BiH Court which ordered the detention of Jerko Ivanković Lijanović, Slavo Ivanković Lijanović, Milorad Bahilj, Jozo Slišković, and Mirjana Šakotić.

With this decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH, the appeal of Jerko Ivanković Lijanović, Slavo Ivanković Lijanović, Milorad Bahilj, Jozo Slišković, and Mirjana Šakotić was partially granted, "and it was determined that there were violations of the BiH Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the part of the BiH Court's decision relating to special detention grounds. The same reasons apply to the possibility of escape and the possibility of re-offending. At the same time, the appeal was partially rejected regarding the ordering of detention due to the possibility of influencing witnesses."

We remind you that the Lijanovići and others were arrested in the operation "Meso", and were ordered into detention, and were released a month and a half later with restrictive measures.

The BiH Court first made a decision that the suspects would remain in detention for one month, and then that their detention would be extended until November 29. In the meantime, the Appellate Panel of the BiH Court made a decision to lift the detention.