”The trial of Selmo Cikotic, the current Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), accused of abuse of office and the fact that in the period from 2009 to 2011, when he served as Minister of Defense, he damaged the state budget by about 9.7 million BAM and thus obtained property benefit for the other in the amount of over 4.1 million BAM, has begun, ” the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) BiH reported.
Cikotic allegedly used his official position in a way that was contrary to the Agreement on the final disposal of all rights and obligations over movable property that will continue to serve the needs of defense from March 2008 and Decisions of the Presidency of BiH passed and signed two Decisions approving the delivery or exchange of goods, and four Decisions on the delivery of ammunition and also concluded four Annexes to four basic contracts for the sale of non-performing weapons and ammunition concluded during 2003 and 2004.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, Cikotic reduced large quantities of weapons and ammunition which were harder for the buyer to sell in the market, on behalf of the Ministry he headed, concluding the Annexes, without informing the deputy ministers, to whom all acts signed by the Minister are initialed, and all in order to meet the requirements of the company “Scout” doo. Zagreb.
”Without having previously performed appropriate checks in the Ministry of Defense on the merits of the buyer’s request, thus acting exclusively in the interest of the buyer, in which way he enabled the acquisition of property to others in the total amount of at least 4.111.725.61 BAM and caused damage to the budget of institutions of BiH in the total amount of at least 9.709.468.04 BAM,” the indictment alleges.
“From March to September 2010, military equipment and ammunition are continuously sourced and taken over, where company representatives come to the warehouse, choose the best quality and send a request to the Ministry,” the prosecutor said, adding that the indictee concludes annexes without that he had previously asked for the consent of the Presidency of BiH.
At this stage of the criminal proceedings, the Defense did not make an introductory statement, except to point out that the indictment was, in their view, complicated and unclear.
E.Dz.
Source: BHRT
