Jasminka Knežević, the prosecutor for Sarajevo Canton, has been sentenced to one year in prison and banned from holding any position within judicial institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a decade. The ruling follows her conviction for revealing official secrets. In addition, the court has confiscated her mobile phone and required her to cover the expenses related to the legal proceedings.
In delivering the initial verdict, Mersudin Pružan explained that the ten-year ban applies to roles involving judicial authority, investigative duties, and positions as an expert associate. He added that the disqualification period will not run concurrently with the prison sentence. The measure was imposed to prevent Knežević from committing a similar offence in the future.
The ruling can be appealed to the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the trial, Knežević and her attorney, Damir Beglerović, consistently argued that no crime had occurred. They questioned the lawfulness of the evidence collected by the prosecution and contested the court’s authority over the case.
Knežević was charged with sending photographs of confidential documents from a criminal case assigned to her to Sreten Manojlović in May 2025 via TikTok and WhatsApp.
The charges allege that she disclosed images of materials from the Intelligence-Security Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (OSA BiH) marked as “confidential”, along with a portion of a witness interview transcript from an active investigation, fully aware that the information was protected as an official secret.
The court was informed that Knežević reached out to Manojlović in response to his public claims accusing her of obtaining apartments through questionable methods. She provided him with documents to illustrate her professional conduct and safeguard her reputation.
The prosecution based its case on their exchanged communications, the contested messages, and evidence showing that the documents had been stored in Knežević’s office.
Knežević was suspended in June 2025 by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council.
The Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN) had earlier covered the disciplinary actions taken against her.
She received penalties in the form of pay cuts in both 2017 and 2020 for marking hundreds of cases as closed despite them remaining unresolved.
Her first disciplinary penalty occurred while she was employed as an expert associate at the Municipal Court in Orašje, where her salary was cut by 20% for three months, resulting in a total deduction of about 720 BAM.
The second sanction came when she served as a prosecutor at the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor’s Office, during which she received only half her salary for six months—a loss of approximately 7,200 BAM.
In 2022, Knežević faced disciplinary action for a third time after arranging plea agreements with five individuals without informing the Chief Prosecutor. She also failed, without valid reason, to submit timely responses in six criminal cases involving complaints about suspended or uninitiated investigations.
Consequently, her salary was reduced by 50% over a one-year period, and she was required to complete training in plea bargaining and professional ethics spanning at least three semesters.
