The Prosecutor’s Office of the Canton of Sarajevo is investigating the former mayor of Ilidža Municipality on suspicion of abuse of position and authority during his tenure as mayor. That’s why he was arrested today.
Namely, Memic is suspected of abuses when granting permits to the Saudi investor “Malak Group”. In 2013, the investor received permission to build a building in the area of Ilidža, which includes the ground floor and four floors. Two years later, more precisely in February 2015, the investor was allowed to have seven floors by the decision of the Spatial Planning Service of the Municipality of Ilidža.
The CS Prosecutor’s Office announced that Memic is accused of having illegally issued several permits during his term of office from 2013 to mid-2017 in connection with the construction of the buildings of investors Panamera, Malak Group, and the parking lot of the municipality of Ilidža, which was given to the hospitality facility “Brajlović”.
Research portal Detektor wrote about the issue of permits to the Malak Group hotel back in 2016.
In the criminal complaint against Memić and two other employees of the Municipality, it was stated that the mayor at the time, by issuing two permits, allowed the construction of the hotel, after the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Environmental Protection of the Canton of Sarajevo annulled earlier decisions allowing the construction, considering Memic’s approval that the hotel has seven floors, and according to the Regulatory Plan and existing laws, the building height is allowed up to four floors.
As confirmed for BIRN BiH by the Prosecutor’s Office in 2020, this criminal report was checked for more than 50 months – four years, two months and 23 days, after which the acting prosecutor Željka Radovanović-Sokić stated that the investigation will not be conducted because in the report ” the established element (…) benefits the investor ‘Malak Group'”, that is, it has not been shown that the hotel benefited from the fact that it has almost twice the number of floors than the number provided for in the Regulatory Plan.
The criminal complaint against Memic was filed by Ejup Ganić. After the prosecutor Radovanović-Sokić made a decision that the investigation would not be conducted, Ganić’s legal representative Senad Pećanin filed a complaint in which he stated that the prosecutor had made an unreasonable decision.
This appeal was accepted by Sabina Sarajlija, the chief cantonal prosecutor in Sarajevo, and the file was returned to the prosecutor Radovanović-Sokić for a new decision.
During the duration of the appeal procedures, the construction of the “Malak Group” facility continued and the “Regency” hotel was opened at the end of 2016, Klix.ba reports.
