Police officers in Sarajevo have been detained for questioning after the state prosecution launched a new investigation into the unexplained death of 22-year-old Dzenan Memic – a case that sparked street protests.

Bosnian Police Quizzed in Probe into Young Man’s Unexplained Death

Several thousands Bosnians joined a protest to demand justice in separate cases of two young men who died years ago after sustaining life-threatening injuries under unclear circumstances, in Sarajevo, Bosnia, 11 September 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

The state prosecution has detained members of the Sarajevo Canton police force and the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina for questioning on Friday after it launched a new investigation into 22-year-old Dzenan Memic’s death.

“We have been waiting for this for six-and-a-half years. This is a broader operation by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I believe in a positive outcome because I also brought witnesses to them,” Muriz Memic, the father of Dzenan Memic, said on Friday, N1 TV reported.

The unexplained death of Dzenan Memic, and the unresolved case of another young man who died in unclear circumstamces, David Dragicevic, have both sparked protests about alleged official negligence in Bosnia in recent years.

Memic died on February 15, 2016 after he was admitted to the hospital in the capital Sarajevo with severe injuries a week earlier. The prosecutor’s office said Memic was injured in a traffic accident but his family disputed the explanation, pointing to a number of irregularities.

The arrests on Friday came after probes were launched into two former prosecutors in the Canton Sarajevo, Dalida Burzic and Meris Cato. In 2016, Burzic was the head prosecutor, while Cato was the acting prosecutor on the Memic case.

Burzic now works as a judge at the Bosnian state court and the Office of the Disciplinary Prosecutor filed a request for her temporary removal from her duties on Thursday.

The former commissioner of the Sarajevo police, Vahid Cosic, traffic police official Seval Kovacevic, Sarajevo police officers Sakib Kremo and Nurija Mehic and several unnamed others are also under investigation.

They are being investigated for murder and for aiding a perpetrator after a crime.

The Memic family and their lawyer, Ifet Feraget, have called from the beginning for the case to be treated as a murder investigation, and have raised concerns about a possible cover-up.

The Sarajevo Canton prosecutor’s office, whose chief prosecutor at the time of Memic’s death was Dalida Burzic, initially investigated the case as a murder, but then classified it as a traffic accident.

The prosecution accused Ljubo and Bekrija Seferovic, members of the Roma community, of killing Memic with a van in Ilidza, a Sarajevo municipality.

But they were acquitted twice by the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo. Both verdicts were then annulled by the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which finally upheld the acquittals in July 2021.

The same month, the state court confirmed a separate indictment against five people charged with organised crime for allegedly covering up evidence of how Memic died.

One of the indictees is Memic’s former girlfriend, Alisa Mutap, who later got married and is now Alisa Ramic. She was with Memic on the night he died, but later in the investigation said she does not remember what happened that night.

The other accused are Ramic’s father, Zijad Mutap, members of the Sarajevo police force Hasan Dupovac and Josip Baric and the receptionist of the Crystal Hotel, which is located near the site of Memic’s death, Muamer Ozegovic.

The Memic family claim that Ramic and high-ranking officials are hiding the real causes of the 22-year-old’s death.

Source link: balkaninsight.com