FOLLOWING PLEA AGREEMENT, PERSON ACCUSED OF CORRUPTION CRIMES SENTENCED TO ONE YEAR IN PRISON

The accused Mirsen Ćano, born in 1975, employed as a customs officer of the Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Customs Office in Velika Kladuša, signed a Plea Agreement admitting his guilt and was subsequently sentenced to imprisonment for a term of one (1) year by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He was found guilty of the criminal offence of Organized Crime, referred to in Article 250 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in conjunction with the criminal offence of Accepting Gifts and Other Forms of Benefit, referred to in Article 217 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In this case, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is prosecuting corruption activities and actions of customs officers. The person accused in this case is charged with joining an organized group of several officers of the Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the Customs Office in Velika Kladuša, in his capacity of a senior associate - customs officer, together with other persons.

The aforementioned customs officers used the possibility to apply a wide range in determining the value of goods, that is, the customs basis / value, during the customs control and clearance of goods at import, and they required importers to give them gifts so that they would carry out the customs procedure they were obliged to perform.

The Plea Agreement was forwarded to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina accepted it and sentenced the accused to one (1) year in prison.