SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s Security Minister Nenad Nesic and six other people were arrested on Thursday on charges of organised crime including money laundering, abuse of office and acceptance of bribes, the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The state prosecutor and the Interior Ministry of decentralised Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic (RS) have been investigating suspected corruption at the public company Roads of RS, where Nesic was the general manager from 2016-20.
The company’s current general manager, Milan Dakic, was also arrested, as well as Mladen Lucic, a member of the Democratic People’s Alliance party led by Nesic. Local media reported that Lucic had been indicted for abuse of office while serving as a deputy in a municipal assembly.
Nesic, asked by journalists to comment on the charges while he was entering the police station in East Sarajevo, said only: “I continue to fight for Republika Srpska (RS).”
Lucic’s lawyer Nina Karacic confirmed for N1 television that he was detained and his house searched.
“I only know this is about an (alleged) ‘acceptance of bribe’ criminal act,” Karacic said, adding that more would be known after a hearing with the prosecution.
The prosecution did not identify the other four people in custody.
RS President Milorad Dodik is himself on trial in Bosnia’s state court for defying decisions of Christian Schmidt, the international peace envoy who oversees implementation of the Dayton treaty that ended Bosnia’s 1990s war.
Dodik accused the prosecutor’s office of a campaign of persecution against RS officials.
“The procedure launched by Bosnia’s prosecutor’s office against Security Minister Nenad Nesic is totally unacceptable,” Dodik said on his X profile.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; editing by Alexandra Hudson and Mark Heinrich)
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