INDICTMENT FILED FOR MIGRANT SMUGGLING AND ATTACK ON AUTHORISED OFFICERS

A prosecutor of the Special Department for Organised Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH filed an indictment against:

- IVAN STIPIĆ, aka “Zuza”, born in 1984 in Mostar, previously convicted, citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is alleged against the defendant that on 29 November 2022, with the intention of acquiring unlawful property gain, he attempted to illegally transfer five migrants, citizens of the Republic of Turkey, including minors, who did not meet the conditions for legal crossing of the state border from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Republic of Croatia in order to illegally transfer them further to EU countries. During his apprehension, he directed a serious threat to the safety of officers who were performing their official duties.

According to the indictment, Stipić transported the smuggled persons in his vehicle and illegally took them on foot, along a forest path, to the immediate vicinity of the state border with the Republic of Croatia, where police officers caught him in the perpetration of the criminal offence. When discovered, the defendant disobeyed the orders issued by the police officers of the Border Police of BiH, pointed a cold weapon-knife at them and made serious threats to the officers performing their official duties, namely that he would attack them with the cold weapon, after which he was overpowered and deprived of liberty.

The defendant is accused of having committed the criminal offence of human smuggling set out in Article 189 (4) of the Criminal Code of BiH as read with paragraph (1) thereof, in conjunction with Article 26 of the same Code, and the criminal offence of Attack against official persons on tasks of security, detection and apprehension of perpetrators of criminal offences set out in Article 241b (1) of the Criminal Code of BiH, all in conjunction with Article 53 of the same Code.

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