INDICTMENT ISSUED FOR SMUGGLING OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS

The accused Haris Helač (1978) is charged, as the owner of a taxi association, with organizing vehicles and drivers for smuggling illegal migrants who did not meet the conditions for a legal stay and movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued an Indictment against the following person:

-          Haris Helač, born in 1978 in Sarajevo, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The accused is charged, as the owner of a taxi association, with engaging his employees, upon a previous agreement with a person known to him and for the purpose of acquiring unlawful material gain, in the illegal smuggling of a large number of persons - illegal migrants, who did not meet the legal requirements for entry, stay and movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Indictment alleges that the accused, together with two drivers, took over twelve (12) illegal migrants, Iraqi citizens and one Somali citizen, in the center of Sarajevo, and drove them in the direction of Tomislavgrad and the international border with the Republic of Croatia and the EU, and they left the migrants at the agreed location, near the border zone to enable them to cross to the territory of the Republic of Croatia on foot.

Through the activities of the Kamensko-Tomislavgrad unit of the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the aforementioned accused was detected and deprived of liberty in his vehicle, and illegal migrants were also found and placed under surveillance, while their smuggling was prevented.

The accused is charged with attempting to enable the illegal crossing of the state border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia and committing the criminal offence of Smuggling of Persons under Article 189, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.