The license for access to classified information, that the director of the Intelligence and Security Agency (in Bosnian: OSA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) owns is supposed to expire today, as the Ministry of Security of BiH confirmed. Until today, he has not referred to the Ministry for a request of issuing a new license to access this information.
The members of the Commission for Supervision of the OSA requested a meeting with the chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH and his deputies, to decide, as they say, how to get out of the unsustainable situation regarding this agency. And the unsustainable situation is, according to one of the members, the impossibility of supervision and control.
“We will have a problem with security permits very soon. It will happen that the mandate of the entire management expired a year and a half ago. We have an unmanageable situation in the agency, and the agency is important and crucial in the functioning of one segment of life in the state,” says Predrag Kozul from the Commission for Supervision of OSA BiH.
Kozul adds that he does not yet know when the meeting will be held, but he hopes it will be soon.
The Chairman of the Commission did not want to comment on this issue yesterday. At the last session of the Parliament, the chairman of the Council of Ministers informed the deputies through a parliamentary issue that the complete procedure of appointing the OSA leadership was blocked until the process against the current director and candidate for director, Osman Mehmedagic Osmica, is completed.
“In the court process, if the man who is proposed proves his innocence, he will stay as one of the proposals, and possibly if it is the other way around, it will not be able to propose that name,” said Zoran Tegeltija, the chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH.
Today, the director of OSA’s license for access to classified information expires, and he did not address the Ministry of Security of BiH with a request for issuing a new license, as it was confirmed from this Ministry. Whether this means that Mehmedagic is left without access to such data is unknown for now. According to the Law on Protection of Classified Information and Article 59, which deals with security breaches due to which the issuance of a license may be denied, “proceedings for a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for at least three months” are also included.
The members of the Commission for Supervision of OSA BiH mostly do not want to talk about this issue. They say they have no competence for that.
“We as the Commission do not have that competence. Of course, I will be interested after your question and look for an answer. What I can tell you is that the last session, which was interrupted about 10 days ago due to some other questions that the members of the commission asked the chairman of the Council of Ministers and his two deputies. So, this is the burning issue and an interesting topic, but as the Commission member, I do not have an answer to your question, ” says Asim Sarajlic, a member of the Commission for Supervision of OSA.
Mehmedagic is being tried in the Court of BiH for the criminal offense of abuse of power. The closing arguments of this case will occur tomorrow, BHRT writes.
