The Srebrenica Memorial Center has been exposed to political and judicial pressure for months. Emir Suljagić, director of this institution, warns of information from the highest judicial structures of Republika Srpska, according to which a violent police raid is allegedly planned, with the presence of cameras. The other side, as expected, rejects everything. There are still a number of unknowns in the whole story.
Hearings without official details
Mass invitation to the hearing of former and current associates. No official details of who is leading the investigation or specifically why. And then a step further. The Director of the Center claims that a major operation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS is being prepared, followed by cameras and the invasion of the Memorial Center by special forces. Not by law, he says, but by force.
“To make a demonstration of force that has two goals: the first goal is a strategic goal, and Milorad Dodik himself stands behind that goal, which is to permanently discredit the Memorial Center, to destroy it, to discredit it as an institution of memory. And the second, tactical goal, without which this first goal cannot be implemented, is for me to end up in prison,” said Emir Suljagić, director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, in a guest appearance on Federal Television’s Dnevnik.
Suljagić said that he knows that there is an investigation against him due to the publication on the social network X, that is, Twitter, because, as he stated, individuals were offended. He described the entire procedure as a “parapolice and paraintelligence operation”.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS rejects the allegations
In the meantime, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS announced that Suljagić’s claims were incorrect and unfounded:
“In this case, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia acts exclusively at the request and under the supervision of the acting prosecutor of the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina, and in connection with the report of the existence of elements of the criminal offense of ‘tax and contribution evasion’,” stated the statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia.
Suljagić, however, states that the statement of the MUP cannot be considered as a sufficient guarantee of the safety of the Memorial Center, its employees and documentation. They don’t believe them because the genocide in Srebrenica was committed by the RS army and police, says Suljagić. Well, they are already taking rigorous measures.
“We will discuss how many tomorrow to close the Memorial Center until either the conditions for our normal and smooth work are created or until this so-called investigation is taken over by the state institutions. But what is certain is that we will not allow the Bosnian Serb police to create jurisdiction over the Memorial Center where it does not have it,” said Suljagić.
26 persons invited, three questioned
According to him, of the 26 invited persons, three were questioned, while four refused to give a statement to the police and requested to be questioned by the prosecutor.
And who is the acting prosecutor, what kind of proceedings are being conducted, against whom and for what reason? These are all questions to which we have not yet received an answer. More specifically, to the inquiry we sent to the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina.
Previously, this institution said that they are investigating some individuals from the Memorial Center for alleged tax evasion, however, it should be emphasized that all transactions carried out by the Memorial Center must go through the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina, headed by Srđan Amidžić.
