Azhar Kalamujić, a reporter from the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN), Bosnia and Herzegovina, won third place in the European Union Investigative Journalism Award for his story Call The Bey For Car Park, the piece which exposes how former Stari Grad Municipality mayor Ibrahim Hadžibajrić and his family misused municipal parking lots and other public spaces for personal gain.
The first prize was awarded to Arduana Pribinja, a journalist from Al Jazeera Balkans, for her story Allegations of Sexual Harassment by Patients at Zenica Hospital, and to journalists Selma Učanbarlić and Nino Bilajac for their piece Inside eMagnetix’s Million-Dollar Fraud, published on Detektor.ba. The second prize went to Dejan Rakita for his story TRGOVSKA GORA: Why and How It Was Chosen, What’s Being Built There, and The Dangers It Poses.
Kalamujić shared the third prize with Azra Omerović and Zinaida Đelilović, journalists from Žurnal, for their article titled International University in Goražde: Obtained a Dentistry Degree Despite the University Having No Enrolled Students.
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The focus of the EU award is to celebrate and promote exceptional investigative journalism, highlighting the outstanding achievements of investigative journalists and contributing to the greater visibility of quality investigative reporting.
The awards were presented on October 22, 2024, at the Europe House in Sarajevo.
In his investigation, Kalamujić revealed that Hadžibajrić allocated several public parking spaces in Sarajevo’s tourist center to friends, arranging agreements that would enable his son to amass a fortune. From 2017 to 2020, Hadžibajrić granted private individuals access to parking lots in the city’s tourist core without the Municipal Council’s knowledge and without conducting a tender to establish rental prices and other criteria. The mayor chose the tenants, often to the detriment of the local community.
After the story was published, the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office of Sarajevo Canton (KS) charged Hadžibajrić with forming a criminal group with friends and relatives that, among other activities, misappropriated municipal parking facilities and other public spaces for personal gain.
