INDICTMENT ISSUED FOR SMUGGLING MIGRANTS WITHIN BiH TERRITORY

The accused is charged with having smuggled, for consideration, illegal migrants through the BiH territory, including minors, who illegally entered Bosnia and Herzegovina and did not have valid documents for their stay in BiH.

A prosecutor of the Special Department for Organised Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption has filed an indictment against:

-      MIRALEM MERDŽANOVIĆ, born in 1998 in Tuzla, citizen of BiH.

The accused is charged that on 20 September 2018, in the area of Ugljevik, he, while operating a rented passenger motor vehicle, took over 25 smuggled persons from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, including 7 minors, and transported them in the direction of Tuzla. He was detected and prevented in doing this by members of the Ugljevik Police Station at the site of Donje Zabrđe in the Ugljevik municipality.

The indictment alleges that the accused acted in violation of Article 6 of the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational and Organised Crime (Official Gazette of BiH, No. 37/02), with the aim of acquiring illicit material gain for himself.

The accused is charged with the criminal offence of Smuggling of People in violation of Article 189 (4) of the Criminal Code of BiH as read with Paragraph 2 thereof.

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