For years, the mayor of Trnovo, Ibro Berilo, meticulously filled out his asset declarations, creating the impression of a responsible politician who thoroughly informed the public about his family’s wealth, even going so far as to count his wife Saima’s entire flock of sheep down to the last head.

However, newly released details from the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office investigation revealed that the Berilo family had additional assets they failed to report.

The mayor failed to report a 57-square-meter apartment valued at 212,000 BAM and his wife’s share in the Raiffeisen Investment Fund, worth around 100,000 BAM.

The property is located in Villa Aroma, at the heart of the Olympic complex on Bjelašnica. Berilo received it as a gift from family friend Adis Mulaosmanović, whose company, LOK-PIL, built the villa with multiple apartments. The apartment building was built on state land that the municipality acquired through a contentious expropriation process and subsequently sold to LOK-PIL with various concessions on building permits, according to prosecutorial documents.

Although Berilo did not register the property in his name, evidence suggests it is his concealed asset. It has been revealed that Berilo and other family members, including his daughter-in-law Arnela Berilo, managed the new family home, with the apartment being rented out to tourists via Booking.com, according to the prosecution’s documents.

After discovering that the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) had uncovered attempts to conceal property ownership, the mayor of Trnovo, with Mulaosmanović’s assistance, arranged to transfer the apartment to a third party in July. However, the plan failed, and the apartment remains registered under LOK-PIL, according to prosecutorial documents.

Investigators also suspect that Berilo may have additional hidden properties in Bjelašnica and Sarajevo, registered under other individuals or companies. Following Berilo’s one-month detention on Thursday, SIPA has urged those listed as owners of the mayor’s and his family’s properties — his wife Saima, sons Mirzet and Merim, and daughter-in-law Arnela — to report them immediately to avoid criminal charges.

Mayor for almost two decades

The mayor has been leading the municipality since 2002, except for a four-year period when he was a local school principal.  Over the past twenty-five years, he has accumulated significant assets.  His holdings, either individually or jointly with his wife and brother, include three houses valued at over 600,000 BAM and about 180,000 square meters of land worth approximately 450,000 BAM.  His wife owns the agricultural company SD Klanac, which operates a farm on 12 dunums of land, valued at 200,000 BAM.  The company engages in livestock farming and owns 464 sheep worth 200,000 BAM.

“Listen, I never have any money. Only what I need to pay, the shepherds and workers. If there is money, I immediately buy land”, Berilo said in an interview with CIN eight years ago.  However, things have changed, and this year, his savings accounts show 108,000 BAM.

Some of his properties were inherited, while he purchased and later sold land over the years, making significant profits.

For instance, in 2005, he bought 25 dunums of land in Donja Grkarica along with Muber Ramić and Aiša Vatrić. The land was purchased for as little as 1.68 BAM per square meter. The parcels are located along the road leading to the nearby Prečko Polje, where the construction of Burj Ozon, a large apartment complex by Arab investors, is planned.

Although Burj Ozon has not been built even nine years after the cornerstone was laid, the value of land in this area of Bjelašnica has increased more than 15-fold.  Berilo, Vatrić, and Ramić found a good buyer — Srce za djecu oboljelu od raka [the Heart for Children with Cancer Association] from Sarajevo.

In 2019, they sold 4,618 square meters to the humanitarian organization, while Berilo himself sold 695 square meters of his land.  The sale brought in 132,000 BAM, with Berilo receiving 55,000 BAM.

The association selected the Donja Grkarica area for a rehabilitation camp for sick children before learning about the land’s ownership, according to the organization’s director, Fikret Kubat.

He stated that they had purchased sixty dunums from various private owners out of the planned eighty, with some parcels acquired before those owned by the mayor.

He says they have not yet approached the municipality because they plan to buy an additional 20 dunums but have been unable to reach the owners or secure the necessary funds for the purchase.

Berilo consistently submitted his asset declarations to the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina following local elections and provided annual reports to the Anti-Corruption Office of the Sarajevo Canton. He is one of the few politicians in BiH who accurately reported the square footage of his and his family’s properties, as well as their income, savings, and loans, using both purchase prices and current market values.

According to his most recent report to the Office, Berilo earned just over 50,000 BAM in salary last year, but he did not disclose his wife Saima’s income. She previously earned about 50,000 KM annually from sheep sales.

Throughout his political career, Berilo changed parties four times.  He started with the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in 1991 and left after 11 years.  He then joined the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of BiH before rejoining the SDA in 2016.  Berilo will run for mayor of Trnovo again this year, and the investigation by the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office will not affect his candidacy.