Sevlid Hurtić, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Minister for Human Rights and Refugees, bought an apartment in the Vučko complex on the Olympic mountain of Jahorina from the company Ski Fenix.
When he bought his 54-square-metre mountain retreat a year and a half ago, Hurtić said he was unaware that the property was subject to a court order prohibiting any agreements that could result in the disposal of the assets.
The property belongs to Club Aparthotel Vučko, which is at the centre of a legal battle involving investors from Russia and Serbia and the Prović family from Pale, as previously reported by the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN). In May 2023, the Basic Court in Sokolac imposed a temporary injunction, blocking the sale of 40 apartments, a commercial building and nearly 2,000 square metres of land in the Vučko complex.
CIN journalists have found that the minister’s new property is not the only asset covered by the court order that has since been registered in someone else’s name. Over the past three years, the Republika Srpska Administration for Geodetic and Property-Legal Affairs (RUGIPRS) has registered 11 new owners for 21 apartments, a commercial property and three plots of land that were previously owned by Club Aparthotel Vučko.
Ski Fenix and B&B Vučko, companies owned by Aleksandar, Milomir and Pavle Prović, took ownership of 18 of the properties, seven of which have since changed hands again. Among the new owners was Minister Hurtić.
“I went to the man who was selling it, went to the notary, the notary drew up the contract, and I got the registration showing that I was the sole owner. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of the matter,” Hurtić told reporters.
The construction of these properties was financed by Dragan Đordan, an investor from Russia. He has been fighting a series of court battles to recover the properties and money he invested in the venture with the Prović family and Mirko Tica from Serbia. They ran the business through their joint company, Club Aparthotel Vučko. The original plan was to recoup the investment by selling the apartments, with the profits to be shared by their children, as co-owners in this company. Instead, the company was left without its assets, while the Đordan family was left out of pocket. Of the 220 properties built, 17 apartments and commercial units, two garages, and one plot of land remained unsold.
The Basic Court in Sokolac told CIN reporters that it had done its part and that RUGIPRS should explain on what basis the new owners were registered. RUGIPRS, meanwhile, said the injunction had not been registered against some of the apartments because applications for the sale and purchase of the properties had been submitted earlier.
Asset freeze
In May 2019, the Basic Court in Sokolac first imposed a temporary injunction over properties in the Vučko complex, including a ban on disposing of funds from the company’s ordinary business operations. The aim was to safeguard the assets of Club Aparthotel Vučko until the ongoing court proceedings were resolved. The court banned the sale of the properties and ordered RUGIPRS to register the injunction in the property records.
Despite the order, between June and the end of December 2019, the company withdrew more than half a million BAM from its bank account. The Đordan family alerted the court to the withdrawals, but no action was taken.
Instead, in mid-2020, Sokolac court judge Šefkija Plasto lifted the injunction after the company complained that it was hampering its business operations. Plasto subsequently retired, and the case then languished in Sokolac for the next four years.
While waiting for the courts to protect his interests, Đordan asked RUGIPRS in June 2022 to register a notice of dispute against the company’s assets in order to safeguard his investment. RUGIPRS refused, arguing that his lawsuit did not concern the properties themselves.
“This is still a debt-recovery dispute,” RUGIPRS told Đordan.
Đordan warned that the company could sell the properties, potentially leaving him even further out of pocket, but RUGIPRS rejected his concern, saying that it was irrelevant to the proceedings.
Đordan is seeking to recover more than BAM 15 million he invested in the construction of the Vučko complex, or to receive the properties in settlement of the debt.
The company’s assets therefore remained free to be sold or transferred until May 2023, when the Basic Court in Sokolac imposed a new temporary injunction prohibiting any disposal of the company’s movable and immovable property.
RUGIPRS, however, did not immediately comply with the court order. It delayed registering the injunction for two and a half months, claiming that the order was unclear.
After that, the court then stepped in: “Please be reminded of your obligation to comply with the Decision. RUGIPRS subsequently registered the injunction.
Despite this, the properties continued to be sold and registered in the names of new owners. In addition to Minister Hurtić, by March 2026 the land registry showed 10 more new owners for 25 properties. The new owners are from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and include the daughters of one of the investors, Mirko Tica, two companies owned by the Prović family, and Standard Prva from Bijeljina.
The District Commercial Court in East Sarajevo awarded Standard Prva a commercial property and two plots of land under the injunction at the Vučko complex, in connection with a debt owed by the Prović-owned company B&B Vučko to the Republika Srpska Investment-Development Bank (IRBRS). In 2024, Standard Prva purchased several debts owed by the companies to IRBRS, including the debt of B&B Vučko. This gave Standard Prva a first-ranking security interest, giving it priority to recover the debt through the courts by enforcing it against the properties.
Minister Hurtić says he was unaware of any injunction against the property. “I completed the purchase a year and a half ago. I didn’t register it myself; the notary takes care of all that.” Along with the apartment, he also bought a 15-square-metre garage that was not subject to the injunction.
The minister would not say who he negotiated the apartment purchase with. When asked about the Prović family, he cut the conversation short: “If the court decides that it should be taken away from me, then it will be taken away, and we’ll move on.”
Darko Radić, the notary who drew up the purchase agreements for most of the apartments, did not respond to journalists’ calls. He also helped the Prović family have the injunction lifted from one apartment and register it in the name of their company, Ski Fenix.
More than a year after the apartment had been placed under the injunction, RUGIPRS informed the court that it would remove the restriction from the property. It did so because, it claimed, notary Radić had requested the registration of ownership in the name of Ski Fenix two months before the injunction was imposed. RUGIPRS should have had that application on file on the day the property was frozen, but it had apparently overlooked it.
In the meantime, the Prović family sold the apartment to eNikola d.o.o. Sarajevo.
RUGIPRS did not explain to CIN reporters how new owners could have been registered despite the court-ordered ban. Although the court injunction is recorded in the property registers, RUGIPRS said it had not been entered against some of the apartments because applications for ownership registration had been submitted earlier.
“We point out that any contrary action would constitute a breach of Article 137 of the Law on Survey and Cadastre of Republika Srpska, which stipulates that, until a first-instance decision becomes final, no new application for registration concerning the same property may be decided upon,” RUGIPRS told reporters.
“That is out of the question. I think that if a notary saw that, and went ahead with it, that would have been extremely reckless,” Vesna Softić, a notary who had worked with the investors in the Vučko complex years earlier, told reporters.
In addition to banning the sale, disposal and transfer of the properties, the Basic Court in Sokolac also prohibited the conclusion of court settlements involving the Vučko assets. Despite this, on 17 properties and a plot of land covered by the injunction, the District Commercial Court in East Sarajevo awarded ownership to another company belonging to the Prović family, B&B Vučko.
In a separate lawsuit against Club Aparthotel Vučko, Đordan and other business partners, the Prović family informed the District Commercial Court in East Sarajevo in late March 2023, shortly before the injunction was imposed, that they had reached an agreement. Under the agreement, they claimed that Club Aparthotel Vučko owed them more than BAM 5 million for using the old Vučko Hotel. The hotel had been handed over to the Prović family by the Municipality of Pale around two decades ago, in disregard of state laws.
Club Aparthotel Vučko entered into the agreement without the knowledge or approval of Bojan Đordan, who owns a 41.5 per cent stake in the company.
Nevertheless, within seven days of the agreement, Judge Minja Mirvić summoned the parties to a hearing attended by their lawyers – Goran Bubić for the Prović family and Aleksandar Majkalović for Club Aparthotel Vučko. A court settlement was then reached, under which the Prović family were awarded properties from the complex in February 2025, which they subsequently registered in the name of their company, B&B Vučko.
The Đordan family says they were never summoned to the hearing and never had access to the hearing record.
The District Commercial Court in East Sarajevo told reporters that the injunction prohibited the company from disposing of, selling, or transferring the assets, but did not prevent the court from awarding the properties to another party. However, the injunction issued by the Basic Court in Sokolac explicitly prohibited the conclusion of court settlements involving the assets.
Judge Mirvić explained that the settlement was reached solely between the two companies, even though the case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Prović family against all the investors and their joint company, Club Aparthotel Vučko. The judge nevertheless considers the parties to be independent of one another and says each can pursue the proceedings separately.
“The dispute in question does not have to be resolved in the same way for all co-litigants,” Mirvić said, adding that a court settlement can be challenged through legal action.
When the properties were awarded to the Prović family, the court in East Sarajevo was aware that they were subject to an injunction, as well as of the multi-million-mark debt owed by Club Aparthotel Vučko to investor Đordan. The court was also aware, as stated in the injunction, that there was a real risk that the company could dispose of the properties, thereby preventing or making it more difficult for Đordan to recover the money owed to him.
No sooner had the Prović family taken possession of the apartments than they began transferring them to other companies and owners. Their lawyer, Predrag Baroš, was registered as the owner of three apartments with a combined area of 175 square metres.
By mid-2025, just 20 properties remained unsold at the Vučko complex, out of the 220 built as part of the development. For the Đordan family, this means that almost all of the valuable assets that could have served as security for their claims had changed hands while the court proceedings were still ongoing.
Sales contracts show that, during the transactions, Club Aparthotel Vučko was represented by its director, Marko Uskoković, from Serbia. CIN reporters were unable to reach Uskoković this time either, just as they had failed to do so in 2023, when they visited him at his address in Belgrade. He receives a monthly salary of more than BAM 7,000 from the company.
At the request of Đordan’s lawyer, court-appointed expert Ismet Katana examined Uskoković’s signatures on company documents used in court proceedings related to Vučko in late 2025. The expert found that Uskoković had not signed the documents himself, but that the signatures were reproductions made using a facsimile or stamp.
“I’m not selling these apartments, nor do I have anything to do with these properties. For the past two or three years, I’ve stepped back, focusing more on my work and business, and also on myself, my family and my life,” Aleksandar Prović told CIN reporters.
The sale of the apartments is the subject of a criminal complaint filed by the Đordan family with the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The complaint was referred to the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in East Sarajevo for further investigation.
In September 2025, the Basic Court in Sokolac extended the injunction over the Vučko complex, citing CIN’s reporting and materials gathered by its journalists at the time as part of the evidence supporting the continued freeze on the assets.
