The District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina announced that the official investigation into the alleged tax evasion of the Srebrenica Memorial Center has not been opened at all.
As they add, only “verification of information” is in force, which further supports suspicions that it is a targeted institutional pressure without a legal basis.
As it was stated for Srna news agency from the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina, in this case, under the supervision of the prosecutor, “measures and actions are being taken to verify the information” from the report on the alleged evasion of taxes and contributions.
“The decision to conduct the investigation has not yet been made, but all persons are being questioned as witnesses,” admitted the Prosecutor’s Office, adding that the prosecutor will only make the “final prosecutorial decision” after collecting the documentation.
This kind of narrative, which is promoted by the media close to the authorities in the RS, is a classic attempt to criminalize the institution that preserves the memory of the victims of genocide. What Srna and the judiciary of the RS consciously keep silent are the facts that the Memorial Center has already warned the public about.
The whole farce surrounding the alleged tax evasion of the 2022 work contract flies in the face of basic facts. Namely, the Srebrenica Memorial Center conducts its entire operations through the Single Account of the Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As the director of the Memorial Center, Emir Suljagić, emphasized earlier, due to the strict treasury system of operations, it is theoretically impossible to commit the crime of tax evasion.
In addition, the campaign of intimidation and mass police interrogations of as many as 26 current and former associates of the Memorial Center began immediately after this institution presented its annual Report on Genocide Denial at the end of July. That is why the management of the Center evaluated this move as a politically motivated process, retaliation and institutional intimidation.
