INDICTMENT FILED FOR SMUGGLING A LARGE GROUP OF MIGRANTS

A Prosecutor of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against:

-         Duško Maletić, aka ‘Pekar’ /Baker/, born in 1986 in Čelinac, citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The charges against the defendant are that he, with a view to acquiring unlawful property gain, in agreement with persons known to him, took over in the area of Sarajevo a group of 18 illegal migrants, citizens of Afghanistan and one citizen of Türkiye, with the intention of transporting them towards the border with the Republic of Croatia for the purpose of their further transportation to the area of EU countries.

The aforementioned activities are contrary to Article 6 of the Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, as well as the provisions of the Law on Border Control, and the defendant knew and was aware that the migrants did not meet the conditions for legal border crossing because they did not have travel documents with valid visas and permits for legal entry and residence in EU countries.

Police officers of the BiH Border Police discovered the defendant in the commission of the criminal offence in the general area of Gradiška, as illegal migrants were in the vehicle he operated.

It is alleged against the defendant that he, with the intention of acquiring unlawful property gain, tried to facilitate the crossing of 18 persons across the state border, who did not meet the conditions for legal border crossing from the territory of BiH to the territory of the Republic of Croatia, at a place not foreseen for the legal crossing of the state border, whereby he committed the criminal offence of Smuggling of persons set out in Article 189 (1) of the Criminal Code of BiH.

The indictment was forwarded to the Court of BiH for confirmation.