CUSTODY MOTION FOR AN AFGHAN CITIZEN SUSPECTED OF ORGANISED CRIME RELATED TO VIOLENT CRIMINAL OFFENCES

During the work on the ‘EAST-SWOT’ case, SIPA police officers identified and deprived the suspect of his liberty in the area of East Sarajevo. In this case, another operation had been previously carried out and two suspects, who are already in custody, were deprived of their liberty.

After interrogating the suspect, the case prosecutor from the Section for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Illegal Migrations sent a motion to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to order the following suspect into custody:

-         DJAVAD DARWAN, born in 2003 in Hundus, Afghanistan, citizen of Afghanistan,

Custody was proposed in accordance with Article 132 (1) (a) of the Criminal Code of BiH, due to the risk of flight of the suspect who is a foreign citizen and who would become inaccessible to the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina upon his departure from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The aforementioned suspect is under investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, partner law-enforcement agencies and institutions. The charges against him are that in the period between mid-2023 and early 2024 he, as a member of the organised group called ‘BWK’, took part in the organisation of the group for committing criminal offences of migrant smuggling in the territories of the Republic of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, carried out the illegal reception and smuggling of illegal migrants who would come to BiH and organised their illegal transport to the Republic of Croatia and EU countries.

The suspects are also suspected that they seriously violated the security situation in BiH and among the migrant population, as well as that they, by using physical force and firearms, abducted three foreign citizens near the migrant camp in Blažuj, whom they kept in forced confinement in difficult weather conditions, inflicted bodily and mental harm on them, injured them with various items and then filmed them in such a state in order to extort a ransom of EUR 10,000 from their families and close persons who are outside Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aforementioned victims had been found and taken care of by the police and relevant services, after which the suspects were deprived of their liberty.

In this case, cooperation was achieved with the Swiss Confederation, EUROPOL and INTERPOL, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, the Intelligence and Security Agency of BiH and the Service for Foreigners’ Affairs of BiH, and the support was also provided by the EU4FAST project for improving the processing of people smuggling and human trafficking cases.

The suspect is charged with the criminal offence of organised crime in conjunction with the criminal offence of smuggling of persons set out in the Criminal Code of BiH, as well as the criminal offences of illegal possession of weapons or explosive substances, abduction, extortion, and minor bodily injury provided for by the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH.

The custody motion was sent to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a hearing is scheduled in which the prosecutor in charge will explain the custody motion in detail.

In this detention case, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with partner institutions, has intensified the investigation and a prosecutorial decision is expected very soon.