The President of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJCP) BiH Milan Tegeltija addressed the Director of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BiH Mirsad Vilic urgently over the phone and asked for his personal security during his stay in Sarajevo.
Tegeltija, as stated in the press release, did this “after the recent appearances of BiH Security Minister Dragan Mektic, calling for political protests in front of the HJPC BiH building.
The HJPC President believes that, in the context of all the current events and in particular the statements by the Minister of Security of BiH, his personal security during stay in Sarajevo is threatened.
Tegeltija became embroiled in a corruption scandal on Thursday after a secretly-filmed video was released showing him allegedly taking bribes through a middleman.
The eight minute video, filmed in November 2018, was published by the Bosnian investigative news portal Zurnal, and shows a an officer named Marko Pandza from the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) meeting in a cafe with businessman Nermin Alesevic and Milan Tegeltija, the head of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC).
In the video Pandza appears to act as an intermediary between Tegeltija and Alesevic, as they discuss Alesevic’s case, which has been slowly handled by the Canton Sarajevo’s Prosecutor’s Office.
Tegeltija, as the head of the HJPC, the body that appoints judges as well as prosecutors and disciplines them, asks Alesevic for the case number and the name of the prosecutor handling it but does not directly ask for any money or favors from the businessman.
Yet when the three exit the cafe the video shows an exchange between Pandza and Alesevic, in which Alesevic counts out the equivalent of US $1143.6 in Bosnian money and hands it to Pandza, who assures him he will give the money to Tegeltija.
“He will take care of it,” Pandza assures Alesevic.
