Supreme Court of FBiH to Consider KS Prosecutor's Office Appeal in Dženan Memić Case

SARAJEVO, (Patria) – The Supreme Court of FBiH will consider on Tuesday, April 23, the appeal of the KS Prosecutor's Office against the first-instance acquittal of Ljubo and Bekrija Seferović, handed down by the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo in July 2018. The Supreme Court's ruling is expected in early May. 

Ljubo and Bekrija Seferović were tried for a traffic accident and obstruction of evidence in the case of Dženan Memić's death. The Cantonal Court found in its ruling that there is no evidence indicating that a traffic accident occurred on the night of February 8, 2016, in Velika Aleja, when Dženan Memić sustained life-threatening injuries under still unclear circumstances. He died on February 15, 2016, at the KCUS.

The KS Prosecutor's Office is asking the Supreme Court of FBiH to overturn the first-instance verdict and return the case to the court for a retrial.

During the trial, which lasted from October 2016 to July 2018, it was established that on the night of the investigation, no point of contact between the vehicle and the pedestrian was found, as pointed out by traffic investigator Sefedin Škrijelj. He also drew the attention of the acting prosecutor Meris Ćato, who left the KS Prosecutor's Office in the middle of the Seferović trial. This was the only case in BiH judiciary where the victim and the Prosecutor's Office were on opposite sides. 

The Cantonal Court in Sarajevo also dismissed the reconstruction footage from June 13-14, 2016, as the court found a series of irregularities, most notably because prosecutor Sead Kreštalica interrogated and led the defendant to confess, which he should never have done.

In that reconstruction, the defendant Seferović cannot show the location of the alleged impact, and witness Alisa Mutap demonstrates the movement of Dženan Memić and herself on the night of February 8, 2016, even though the prosecutor tries to steer her toward a different scenario. That alternative scenario is stated in the findings of traffic expert Ševal Kovačević, which the Cantonal Court dismissed as „superficial, incomplete, and unacceptable.“

Kovačević claimed that the pedestrians were moving in the middle of the road, and that after the alleged impact, Dženan was „thrown eight meters, and that before that he pushed Alisa.“ The injuries found on Dženan Memić's body do not correspond to a traffic accident, as was repeated multiple times during the trial.

The prosecutors further claim in their appeal that traces of glass and plastic were found at the scene, indicating a traffic accident, but they do not explain how, out of the six pieces found, a bag with 83 pieces of glass was delivered to expert Jasmin Bijedić!

There is also no explanation for why the blood-stained shirt of Alisa Mutap was not seized, who erased the footage from the Hotel Crystal, why the first reconstruction conducted in early April 2016 was hidden, why Dr. Alija Čeljo, who confirmed that the injury on Dženan's head could not have been caused by a vehicle impact, was never heard. There is also no explanation for how a piece of paint (only one found during the investigation!) that matches the structure of two different examined vehicles disappeared!

The Memić family has maintained from the very beginning that Dženan did not die in a traffic accident and that Alisa Mutap, the only living witness from that night, knows what happened. 
Even nine prosecutors, led by Dalida Burzić, who was appointed as a judge of the Court of BiH before the end of her term as head of the KS Prosecutor's Office, failed to defend the false indictment for a traffic accident. 

The Prosecutor's Office of BiH has also begun working on the murder case of Dženan Memić, and on several occasions, the young man's father, Muriz Memić, has given a statement about all known facts.