KOJIĆ AND VULIĆ FILE CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST HELEZ

ISTOČNO SARAJEVO, SEPTEMBER 25 /SRNA/ – Sanja Vulić, head of the SNSD caucus in the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, and caucus member Milorad Kojić have filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor's Office of BiH against Minister of Defence in the Council of Ministers Zukan Helez and Armed Forces of BiH Brigadier Šefik Čimpo, for abuse of office or authority.

The complaint states that on September 10, Čimpo issued a decision initiating disciplinary proceedings against a soldier from the Third Infantry /Republika Srpska/ Regiment of the BiH Armed Forces over alleged "glorification of a war criminal," while Helez announced on social media that he had signed a decision terminating the contracts of two BiH Armed Forces members. "By performing their official duties, the aforementioned individuals did not act in accordance with Articles 173 and 175 of the Law on Service in the BiH Armed Forces, because they terminated the employment contracts of individuals without a legal basis," the complaint states. Kojić and Vulić emphasized that Article 173 of the Law lists all grounds for termination of a contract and that the disciplinary offense cited in the decision is not among them. "If the suspects wanted to punish members of the Armed Forces of BiH for the alleged `glorification of a war criminal,` they should have acted in accordance with Article 162 of the Law on Service in the Armed Forces of BiH and imposed disciplinary sanctions that do not include termination of employment contracts, but rather measures and penalties that are proportionately imposed and which, in this case, certainly would not have resulted in termination of the employment contracts," the complainants said. They emphasize that Helez abused his position for political promotion during the pre-election campaign, thereby committed a criminal offense in complicity with Šefik Čimpo.