Azra Miletić, a justice of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH); Ramo Brkić, a former police commissioner of Una-Sana Canton and Senad Šabić pleaded not guilty before the Court of BiH today on charges of giving and receiving bribes during a trial.
At the end of 2013, the Court of BiH sentenced Brkić to 11 years in prison for abuse of office and organized crime and production and trade in narcotics. During the same trial, Šabić was sentenced to ten years for production and trade in narcotics and bribery.
In October 2014, the convictions against Brkić and Šabić were partially overturned on appeal and sent back for retrial. This June, the BiH Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against Šabić and Brkić for bribing Miletić who was presiding over the Appeal Chamber.
According to the charges, Brkić and Šabić gave an advance to Miletić so that she would acquit them or decrease their sentence.
The trial followed on the heels of a major police operation code-named Kastel by the State Investigation and Protection Agency’s from the end of 2010 which led to arrests of a number of police officers and other public officials.
Two years later, the prosecutors filed indictment against Brkić and 22 suspects for organized crime, trade in narcotics, abuse of office and taking bribes.
Of these, 12 defendants pleaded guilty and the Court of BiH sentenced them to prison or probation, while seven persons were acquitted. One case was transferred to the Cantonal Court in Bihać.
The Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo followed the police operation from the start and the trial and made a documentary “Policemen And Criminals“ that has exposed, in documents and interviews, the narcotics trade and recruitment in exchange for money involving officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Una Sana Canton.
