Cantonal Court in Sarajevo froze Esed Radeljaš’s and Jasmina Horo’s assets at the request of the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office – a decision that is subject to appeal.
Radeljaš was a former municipal councillor and cantonal legislator in Sarajevo and Jasmina Horo was a former assistant to Damira Hadžića, the then mayor of Novi Grad Municipality. Both men, along with Nedžad Kapetanović, the former public attorney of Novi Grad Municipality and Jusuf Čaušević, the head of the municipal Department of Property Affairs are suspected of several criminal offences including money laundering and the giving and taking of bribes. According to the prosecutors’ findings the suspects acquired illegal gain at the expense of the Municipality’s budget. They were arrested during a police operation called “Block” carried out on 9 November this year. Radeljaš has been retained in custody while the others were released, although with restrictive measures ordered by the court.
In 2006, Novi Grad Municipality leased Radeljaš a plot of land in the suburb of Nedžarići for a fee of around 51,000 KM. Radeljaš received the land without the Municipality announcing a public call for applications for the lease, which is against the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) Law on Development Land. The Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo (CIN) had earlier reported that allegedly, municipal public attorney Kapetanović had helped Radeljaš bypass this provision.
A year later, Radeljaš sold his summer house at the Bijambare nature park to Kapetanović for 10,000 KM.
Radeljaš lost the right to the municipal land in 2010, because he failed to honour his obligation to build an office building on it by a set deadline. Radeljaš was at the time a councillor with Novi Grad Municipal Assembly and he demanded compensation from the Municipality. Compensation was approved by an amount that was 20 times larger than Radeljaš had paid for the land. He was paid 1.03 million KM. Čaušević was in charge of this procedure as well, while Horo approved the compensation order.
Six months later, Horo bought a 110 square meter apartment in Sarajevo. According to the records CIN obtained, she paid 164,000 KM for the apartment. The Court froze this apartment as well.
Radeljaš’s property had already been blocked after Alija Delimustafić, a former BiH interior minister filed a law suit against him before the Municipal Court in Sarajevo.
In 2009, Radeljaš signed a contract with Delimustafić to build condominiums with office space worth more than 8 million KM in Nedžarići. Delimustafić was bankrolling the project, Radeljaš who was a councillor promised to obtain a construction permit. Radeljaš failed to obtain the permit, but did not return the money to Delimustafić, who later sued him before the court in order to recoup the investment. The court banned Radeljaš from selling, leasing or transferring the title of his real estate: a house in Nedžarići, a summer house in Blažuj and land in Foča.
Several days ago, Delimustafić was also arrested in an operation code-named “Justice”. He is suspected of organised crime, money laundering and abuse of office.
