CUSTODY MOTION FOR TURKISH CITIZEN SUSPECTED OF MIGRANT SMUGGLING

Acting within the on-call duty, a Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed a motion to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to order custody for the suspect: 

- Ozdemir Batuhan, born in 1999 in the Republic of Turkiye, a citizen of the Republic of Turkiye, deprived of liberty by the BiH Border Police-Velika Kladuša.

The suspect was deprived of liberty while smuggling 22 illegal migrants, in a van with BiH license plates, in the border area of the Cazin municipality. The migrants in question are originally from the Republic of Turkiye and do not meet the criteria for legal entry and stay in BiH, which is contrary to Article 6 of the Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational and Organized Crime as well as the provisions of the Law on Border Control of BiH. They were handed over to the Service for Foreigners’ Affairs of BiH for further processing.

Remand in custody was proposed for the reasons described in Article 132, paragraph 1, subparagraph a) of the CPC of BiH i.e. due to risk of flight of the suspect who is a foreign citizen.

The suspect is charged with the criminal offense of Smuggling of Persons under Article 189 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The motion for remand in custody was forwarded to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.