CASE: Tomislav Ljubić – Chief Cantonal Prosecutor of Canton Tuzla
By: Bojan Bajić, Public Representative for Ethics and Reputation
(Public Ethics Defenders)
As a public advocate of a vulnerable party, in cases where different government officials violate laws, expect bribes and gifts, behave unprofessionally and unethically, arrogantly harm the legal and legitimate rights of a third party, protect ‘fellow’ offenders to cover up a case for harming third parties, when they manipulate and intentionally misinterpret laws and regulations, then I approach cases in three stages:
Stage One: I try to present to the troubled prosecutors, judges, taxpayers, various inspectors and other civil servants a good and deliberate presentation of the case and the rights of the vulnerable party, to present arguments that the problematic civil servant misinterprets laws and regulations, and of course to try to reason with the arrogant side and warn that in the event of continued retaliation against the endangered party, we will not sit there, arms crossed; At this stage, I make a vow to the arrogant side that I will someday knock on their internet door and claim their responsibility for the damage they intend to cause by their illegal behavior;
Stage Two: Persistent and consistent public disclosure of the case, argued rebuttal of all manipulative allegations, and monitoring of any unlawful step taken by an unethical civil servant, if necessary for years in continuity;
Stage Three: Prooving all the claims before the competent authorities, whereby the victory of the affected party is achieved in a percentage of 100% of cases;
After these three phases, comes our favorite one, which is to knock on the internet door of unprofessional civil servants who, through their unlawful actions, have done immeasurable damage to the vulnerable party, to persistently repeat the words of the verdict to them, preventing them from intent of the case being silenced and the public forgetting about it.
On this occasion, I am pleased to knock on the door of the Chief Cantonal Prosecutor of Tuzla Canton, Mr. Tomislav Ljubić, for filing a mounted, unfounded and manipulative indictment in 2015 against a fair, honest, correct Tuzla Quartz company from Tuzla and an even fairer majority owner and director of the company Smail Velagić, and to acquaint the whole public with the first instance verdict of the Tuzla Court which upheld everything we said to the arrogant side at the very beginning, and in which the bad intent, incompetence and arrogance of the discredited prosecutor Ljubić was very well and vividly explained, but also explained a roadmap for all judges and prosecutors who have the dilemma of behaving ethically and professionally in their business.
In support of this text, I will attach to the readers the entire verdict for individual study, in order to send a message in this way that untouchable powerful civil servants in BiH do not have to be untouchable if the case is dealt with with great persistence, so in this text I will make only a brief review of the case.
Namely, since the 1960s, the company ‘Tuzla quartz’ is the registered owner of three concession fields in Tuzla. During the transition after the last war, workers (about fifty miners) and the old honest director Velagić made a joint agreement to privatize the company, and so they did. Under the new law of 2005, a rule is introduced that the competent ministry must issue a concession permit for the exploitation of ore, regardless of the fact that Tuzla Quartz has been a registered owner of the land for decades and that no one else can obtain a concession permit without the consent of Tuzla Quartz. And that is not in dispute.
They receive the first five-year concession, which lasts until 2010, together with all other concessionaires in Tuzla Canton, which has several dozen companies, including Kreka and others. Upon expiry of the first five years, they initiate the procedure for obtaining a concession for the next 5 years. Then the Assistant Minister of Energy and Mining in Tuzla Canton, Mr.Bahir Imamović, came to the scene, who saw his chance to earn extra money on top of regular salary, all in a complicated concession renewal procedure.
Bahir begins the action of racketeering numerous companies. The principle is simple, you have to pay the racket otherwise Bahir promises coordinated harassment by inspections and other governing bodies. Some pay not to be exposed to system retaliation.
The old and honest majority owner and director of Tuzla Quartz Mr.Smail Velagić and his son, also the honest and honorable Mr. Zlatan Velagić, at that moment the deputy director of ‘Tuzla Quartz’, decide to do as their family honor dictates, is to turn down a corrupt civil servant. Then began the unimaginable coordinated action by the institutions to destroy the company and 50 miners and their families, who remained in agreement until the end with their honest director, but as in the movie, were exposed to the spectacular and hollow intrusions of special police units in the firm’s circle, suffered false tax and inspection orders, exposed to a fake media lynch by a tendentious public service broadcaster (we will knock on his door in the future to remind him of a defamation judgment), and countless other rigged actions that I will not list on this occasion. Readers can easily get acquainted with the methodology of system retaliation by typing on google search keywords: Tomislav Ljubić, Bahir Imamović, Tuzla Kvarc, Smail Velagić, Zlatan velagić, COD Luna, Bojan Bajić.
Zlatan Velagić reports to SIPA corrupt Bahir Imamović, action of taking over the bribe is organized and SIPA under the order of the State Prosecutor’s Office arrests Bahir Imamović. Zlatan Velagić then tells SIPA that he has no confidence in Chief Cantonal Prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić, so the arrest happens without his knowledge.
Bahir Imamović counts marked bills
At that moment, the Velagić family thinks that the problem has been resolved, which is soon manifested by the decision of the Tuzla Canton Government to approve the concession. However, the hell that ‘Tuzla Quartz’ survived up to this point is minor, compared to what happened afterwards.
Chief Cantonal Prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić takes the stage. In an effort to stop obtaining a concession, he filed a false indictment against Tuzla Quartz for aggravated theft and publicly rallied before officials of the Assembly and the Tuzla Canton Government that the person who issues the concession to ‘Tuzla Quartz’ would deal with him. As a public representative of ‘Tuzla Quartz’ in this case, I never found out whether Ljubić was possibly holding any ready indictment in the drawer or had any other power over the Tuzla Canton Government, either way, the Tuzla Canton Government understood this threat well and expressly within 7 days illegally annulled the previous decision.
The hell that ensued because of prosecutor Ljubić’s insane actions, but also our fierce response to all his stupidity, as reported by media on all continents and films shown worldwide as an eclectic example of an abusive state system against a single company , was a clear signal to domestic and foreign investors to avoid BiH in a wide arc. A large number of investors gave up on BiH after this case.
In the judgment you can study in detail the paradox of the qualification of ‘serious theft’ and the unmasking of Prosecutor Ljubić by Judge Ljiljana Stevanović, who maestrally elaborated on the judgment dated 14 February 2019 (which for some unknown reason was received by Tuzla Quartz only a short time ago) , and here in the text I only briefly present the substance of the indictment:
Namely, all the concessionaires in Tuzla Canton, in agreement with the Tuzla Canton Government, continued exploitation until the problems with the reception of new five-year concession licenses were overcame. During this time, the concessionaires kept records of the mined ore. Tuzla Quartz thus regularly reported to the Ministry how much ore was being mined every day, dumping that ore into production, calculating various payments to the state by each cubic meter, reporting the same obligations to the competent authorities, and calculating through the final product that was released on the market VAT and the same paid to the state.
Prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić rose in this situation with an indictment with the thesis that ‘Tuzla quartz’ commits serious theft of ore and has an unlawful benefit to the company, and it is clear to every administrative and bureaucratic high school student that qualifying it as a theft is a particularly insolent and planned act of intent. Theft is alienating mobile stuff, breaking or otherwise overcoming major obstacles to access items from enclosed buildings, rooms, cash registers or other enclosed premises (Article 287, paragraph 2, item (a) of the Criminal Law of FBiH)… whereby Tomislav Ljubić in his stupidity tried to prove that there is a special type of thieves in BiH, unique in the whole world, who commit grave theft by sending to the Ministry and the Government as owners of the ore in question every month the amount of ore stolen, calculated and paid for the stolen ore tax, and repeatedly ask the Government to invoice a concession fee for the ore stolen, what the Ministry does not do (read: corrupt Bahir Imamović on behalf of the Ministry) by justifying various bureaucratic nonsense.
The movie ‘The Price of Justice’, shown worldwide
An important moment in our defense campaign for ‘Tuzla Quartz’ came after the prosecutor’s guest appearance on local television in Tuzla, when we realized that the prosecutor was confusing basic postulates of legal obligations on the one hand and criminal liability on the other, after which we knew exactly what strategy the prosecutor should be presented in the professional legal public as a non-professional and under-performing in his function, and therefore as very dangerous and harmful to society. He replied to a reporter’s question regarding the Tuzla Quartz case, to paraphrase: ‘the public is not properly informed about this case, because on the one hand it is true that the Assistant Minister racketeered ‘Tuzla Quartz’ and was arrested with marked bills in the amount of 10,000 KM in his hands, and it is not disputed, he will be held responsible, but if you look at the fact that on the other hand Tuzla Quartz owes several hundred thousand KM of concession fees (later it turned out slightly over 100 thousand KM), the question is why the public does not compare the two amounts, because it is obvious that ‘Tuzla quartz’ is doing much more damage to the state.
Prosecutor Ljubić confused apples and oranges in this statement because 10,000 KM is a criminal offense of bribery, for what you get prison sentence, and having a reported debt to someone, even if it is millions of tax or fee debts, is a question of obligations and enforcement procedures of account blocking and seizure of assets, that is, the classic collection of receivables. The prosecutor did not understand that Tuzla Quartz did not evade his obligations, but simply owed one amount, which he duly reported to the state, incomparably smaller than other concessionaires that Ljubić did not charge, and that it had nothing to do with the criminal proceedings.
Prosecutor Tomislav Ljubić’s statements on the memory and analysis of the causes of the weakness of the judiciary in BiH
In any case, Judge Ljiljana Stevanović elaborated all this in a professional and high-quality manner, in a way that is incontrovertible by higher authorities, unless more judicial instances are corrupted in their work. I take this opportunity to congratulate Judge Stevanović on her professional dignity and the defense of her honorable judicial office, hoping that her colleagues across BiH will follow this bright example of professionalism and daring.
Case Epilogue:
Velagić family and miners kept their pride, ‘Tuzla Quartz’ pulled out and survived one of the world’s largest torture systems against a company that reported corruption;
Bahir Imamović, a corrupt assistant minister, convicted of corruption, serving a prison sentence, currently enjoying a ‘well-deserved’ pension;
Tomislav Ljubić, still the Chief Cantonal Prosecutor, at first glance still intact and powerful, but it cannot be easy for him as he reads this truth, and we promise him that we will remind him for a long time about the crime he committed until he publicly apologies to the victims, after which we can discuss what a satisfactory responsibility he must take;
The Office of the HJPC Disciplinary Prosecutor, who ignored all the complaints they received against Ljubić in this case and the public calls and appeals to do something and stop this dangerous bureaucrat, are the next ones who will have to and need to answer to the public why they are protecting such personnel, which, by mounting indictments, consume the capacity of the judiciary and incur unnecessary court costs at the expense of the budget;
Omer Hasanović, journalist for ‘Network’ magazine on FTV, who was then making the most outrageous montages against ‘Tuzla quartz’, which contained so many lies about the story, which I do not want to quote on this occasion so as not to return Velagić and the workers of ‘Tuzla quartz’ to the trauma they endured because of this journalist, of which there is already a first-instance verdict of defamation, which proves that all contributions, from the first to the last second, were false;
BiH lost many investments due to the message of this case that there is general lawlessness and total legal uncertainty for business in BiH;
Many public servants have not learned from this case, but some are, and some have contacted me saying that the time of arrogance on the part of bureaucratic power is slowly passing, and that the resistance of vulnerable parties who are becoming aware that condescension towards civil servants who abuse their public authority is not the solution;
This text should by no means be understood as a general condemnation of public officials, because it is fair to say that the vast majority do and want to do their job responsibly and fairly.
Presuda
