Dr. Faris Gavrankapetanović, former director of the Clinical Center of the University in Sarajevo (KCUS), transferred the property holdings worth 600,000 KM to his wife Alma at the end of last year and the beginning of this one. These consist of two apartments and five garages that Gavrankapetanović received earlier as a gift from his mother Fikreta.
The property was transferred in the name of Alma Gavrankapetanović-Karović after the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Sarajevo opened an investigation against Gavrankapetanović on suspicion of abuse of office.
The Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo (CIN) published a story in March revealing how the Gavrankapetanovićs acquired property worth two million KM while the family’s reported income could not cover such investment. Gavrankapetanović’s daughter Iman, a student without a steady job, owns and apartment and a garage worth 382,000 KM; former wife Amela owns an apartment and a garage worth 575,000 KM, mother Fikreta owns a house paid 94,000 KM while Gavrankapetanović has land and a house in Počitelj worth nearly 200,000 KM.
Along with these, he owned also two garages and two apartments in downtown Sarajevo, gifts from his mother Fikreta which she bought for 757,000 KM in 2012. However, Gavrankapetanović transferred the ownership of some of those properties into his wife’s name in Dec. 2013 and Jan. 2014 after the investigation was launched.
Graphic: CINGavrankapetanović’s mother told CIN reporters in an earlier interview that she has been retired since the end of the war, but had earned money working as a microbiologist in a military hospital in Tripoli, Libya during the 1990s.
At the end of last year, the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Sarajevo launched an investigation into allegations that Gavrankapetanović abused his post as director of the clinical center. Prosecutors allege that his mismanagement damaged the clinic for 23.5 million KM between 2004 and 2010. He had allegedly concluded harmful public procurement contracts; he did not follow legal procedures in putting in public bids; he under or over valued bids in public procurement procedures when buying a neuroimaging equipment, computer hardware and software, and , in choosing a building security agency he did not follow competitive bidding rules.
The Prosecutor’s Office also alleges that Gavrankapetarnović illegally employed 260 people at the clinic, signed management contracts with some employees improperly, and hid losses in the clinic’s financial reports. Prosecutors suspect that the director profited personally from these acts.
The investigation is ongoing according to the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office while the prosecutor in charge has not requested the freezing of Gavrankapetonović’s assets, which is why he can still sell them or give them away.
However, according to the Federation Law on Forfeiting of Illicit Gain which came into force this September, the property might be forfeited if the court rules that it was acquired illegally and the transfer of ownership was not done “in good faith.”
