After the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)announced that Zoran Galic, the former director of the Border Police of BiH and the current deputy director of SIPA, fled to Croatia, it is important to note that he is not the only one who used dual citizenship to escape prosecution.
Galic is one in the series who used the trip to a neighboring country to avoid ending up behind bars.
These are some of the most famous cases
Ante Jelavic – Engineer + Officer + Politician + President = War profiteer
He is a former member of the BiH Presidency and the HDZ BiH, who was sentenced to ten years in prison for crimes in the former Herzegovina bank.
“Suspicious actions at Hercegovacka bank were explained in the secret report by the former temporary manager of Hercegovacka bank Toby Robinson, who exposed the secret flows of money through the accounts of natural and legal persons, who were the political leaders of the HDZ in the late 1990s, just before the change of government and the arrival of Racan’s government, and which damaged the state budget of the Republic of Croatia by more than one billion kuna”, says Dnevni list, referring to a document created by Robinson in 2002, which allegedly reveals a list of secret accounts, legal entities and individuals through which budget funds were stolen of the Republic of Croatia.
The case accuses Jelavic of transferring money from the Croatian budget intended for the HVO to secret HDZ accounts and then to other companies and individuals, among whom Jelavic allegedly was. In 2005, the Court of BiH sentenced Jelavic to 10 years in prison. At the time of the sentencing, Jelavic was no longer in BiH. He was released on bail of half a million BAM.
The domestic intelligence agency claimed that Jelavic was hiding in Croatia, but until 2007 there was no public evidence of this. In February of that year, Jelavic was photographed in front of Hrvatska postanska bank by a photojournalist of Jutarnji list.
Lejla Fazlagic is among those who fled to Croatia.
Lejla Fazlagic – disinherited Sarajevo Jews
As CIN previously wrote, from 2011 to 2016, she disinherited dozens of real estate owners in Sarajevo, transferring their houses, apartments, business premises and land to persons who had no right to that property. The most common targets were the abandoned properties of Sarajevo Jews who died in the Second World War and other deceased Sarajevo residents, as well as the property of certain companies.
The case that shocked the public the most was that of convicted pedophile Ivica Miskovic.
Ivica Miskovic – Pedophile escaped from the courtroom, straight to Croatia
Miskovic, to recall, escaped from the Basic Court in Banja Luka on November 7th, 2023, after he was sentenced to a total of four years in prison for four assaults on a girl, and this court issued an order to issue a warrant the next day. Now Miskovic is freely walking around Croatia. Even after his escape, he was a guest on television where he justified his actions. He was previously convicted of the same criminal offenses in Croatia.
Escape from Croatia to BiH
But people are not only fleeing from BiH to Croatia but also vice versa. The Mamic brothers are one of the most famous fugitives from Croatia in BiH. After being convicted in their country in BiH, they live normally and often appear as guests in podcasts. They are also owners of companies.
Zdravko Mamic – Millions from Dinamo for peace in Medjugorje
The first man of the Zagreb football club Dinamo, Zdravko Mamic, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for damage caused to the club in the amount of 15.5 million euros and for tax evasion of 1.2 million. Along with Mamic, his brother Zoran, director of the Croatian Football Association and former director of Dinamo Damir Vrbanovic and tax collector Milan Pernar were convicted of theft from Dinamo.
Among those who escaped to BiH is the war criminal Branimir Glavas, who was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Also, the controversial entrepreneur Tomislav Opacak escaped from serving an eight-month prison sentence. It is also known that, before, he has been charged with several criminal offenses – threats, extortion, fraud, theft.
The latest case of the escape of Zoran Galic, as stated in the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, reopened the issue of leaking information that is crucial so that the suspect could escape to a country of whose dual citizenship he has before the action of the police structures or the court verdict itself, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
