The Municipal Court in Bihać confirmed the indictment accusing Fikret Abdić, the mayor of the municipality of Velika Kladuša, of abuse of office.
Abdić is accused of having passed the Rulebook on January 27, 2023, by which he assumed all the powers to create, use, preserve and destroy the seal of the Velika Kladuš Municipal Council, the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Bihać announced on Wednesday, August 23.
He did this even though he was aware that the Municipal Council is a special representative body separate from the municipal administrative body and that he does not have the authority to perform tasks within the scope of the Council’s competence, the indictment states.
As it is pointed out, the Municipal Council sent Abdić a request for the return of the seal on February 6 of this year, but he refused, thereby infringing the right of the Municipal Council to carry out its duties.
“Preventing him from using the seal for the purpose of certifying general and other acts passed by the Municipal Council within the framework of its powers and confirming their originality and the impossibility of their publication in the official gazette of the Municipality of Velika Kladuša,” the cantonal Prosecutor’s Office states.
After the indictment is confirmed, a plea hearing is expected to be scheduled.
In 2002, Firket Abdić was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the County Court in Karlovac for war crimes in Bosnian Krajina, and in 2005, the Croatian Supreme Court reduced his sentence to 15 years.
After serving two-thirds of his sentence, he was released, after which he returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina and won the elections for the mayor of Velika Kladuša.
Abdić was arrested on June 18, 2020, as part of the operation of the Federal Police Administration codenamed “Network”, along with five other people.
The action was the result of a months-long investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Una-Sana Canton against suspects for several prolonged criminal acts of abuse of position or authority and violation of equality in the performance of economic activity.
These are crimes that were committed from 2016 until the moment of arrest.
He was released from detention before the local elections of the same year, so that he could again participate in the campaign for the mayor of Velika Kladuša.
Fikret Abdić, known by the nickname Babo, is the founder of Agrokomerc, one of the most powerful economic giants in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, but also an actor in one of the biggest economic affairs in the former Yugoslavia.
In 1987, he was accused, among other things, of issuing unsecured promissory notes worth about 400 million dollars. He was sentenced to four years in prison, but this sentence never became final, Detektor reports.
