SIPA’s Lujić denies irregularities during recruitment process

Goražde: Border Police officer kills wife

Two bomb explosions in Sarajevo

Brod Police Commander’s car destroyed in fire

Dodik sets new conditions: State laws can be adopted only after agreement is reached between entities

Dodik calls all-Serb gathering on Mt. Jahorina

Sørensen says Dayton Agreement ‘is a thing of the past’, Dodik responds ‘leave Dayton alone’

Inzko: HJPC is a success story

New provocation from RS as regards Dobrovoljačka Street

Dnevni Avaz, pg 2 – Police officers of the BiH State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) sent a letter several days ago to Dnevni Avaz claiming that Director Mirko Lujić has been depriving them of their right to have their work status solved and preventing them from getting a rank in line with their formal education level.

According to the officers, 60 cadets with university degree have been recruited by SIPA over the past four years, and some of them have suspicious background.

“Upon the completion of four-month training, they were given the junior inspector rank, while police officers with 10 or 15 years of working experience and a degree in law or criminal justice cannot solve their status,” reads the letter.

The police officers wonder why Lujić issued a decision on 26 August to open vacancies for 44 cadets with university degrees.

“This fully prevents the solving of our status. We have delegated this issue to SIPA Trade Union, but we have seen no results. The only option left for us is to go on a hunger strike,” said the officers.

In a statement to Avaz, SIPA Director Mirko Lujić denies that anybody in SIPA has been prevented from getting promoted, explaining that the officers are obviously not familiar with the fact that they have to serve a set period of time in their present ranks before they are considered for promotion. Another problem is the Rulebook and its regulations concerning the transitional period in filling the posts, which does not favour the categories of staff that have obtained additional education while working in SIPA.

“This is about 54 staff who graduated from universities while they were working in SIPA. Internal vacancies will be issued as soon as all conditions have been fulfilled, but not all of them will be able to pass. This is so because of the law,” explains Lujić.

 

Dnevni Avaz, front page and pg 19, Oslobođenje, front page and pg 13, Dnevni List, front page and pg 20, Glas Srpske, pg 13, Press RS, front page, Nezavisne Novine, front page and pg 13 – Fahrudin Perla (46), an officer of the BiH Border Police, killed his wife Mirsada (35) on Wednesday night in their home in Bačići settlement in Goražde, and then called a friend and informed him of the crime he had committed.

Police said the woman was shot six times but was still alive when they arrived at the scene. Eventually she died in Goražde Health Centre.

“Fahrudin said he asked his wife to find him a T-shirt to wear and she told him to find it himself. Then he took a gun and killed her,” said cantonal prosecutor Lazar Draško.

The couple’s neighbours say their marriage had been in crisis for years.

 

Nezavisne Novine, pg 12, Oslobođenje, pg 12, Dnevni Avaz, pg 21 – An explosive device, most probably a hand grenade, was activated at 1.30 AM yesterday in front of ‘Orlando’ coffee bar in Dobrinja, police said. Several apartments and seven cars were damaged in the explosion but nobody was injured. There are speculations that the bomb was thrown at the coffee bar because of loud music.

Approximately at the same time, another bomb went off in Buća Potok. Nobody was injured, while damage was done to a hair salon that has been closed for some time already.   

Avaz reminds that three bombs were activated in eight hours ten days ago in Sarajevo.

 

Glas Srpske, pg 12, Oslobođenje, pg 12, Nezavisne Novine, pg 13 – A Reno Scenic belonging to Brod PS Commander Slobodan Miličević was destroyed in a fire that broke out early yesterday morning in front of the apartment building where he lives. Police refused to speculate about the incident, saying the investigation will determine the cause of fire. 

 

 

Nezavisne Novine, front page and pg 5, Glas Srpske, front page and pg 3, Dnevni List, pg 5, Oslobođenje, pg 2, Dnevni Avaz, pg 4 – RS President Milorad Dodik has said that the current and future laws, which have been or will be passed at the level of BiH, are unquestionable if agreement was previously reached between the entities, as envisaged by the Dayton Agreement and the BiH Constitution.

"Republika Srpska and the Federation are parties to the agreement, while BiH and the BiH Parliamentary Assembly are only a service," Dodik told reporters in Banja Luka yesterday.

He said that the Dayton and the BiH Constitution stipulate that BiH has only ten constitutional jurisdictions, and everything else may be allocated to it through an agreement between the two entities, "which has not been done so far, for the international community imposed solutions aimed at unitarization of BiH".

Dodik said that the OHR "recently admitted" that out of the 200 laws that have been adopted at the state level, "the procedure was followed only in three cases: armed forces, indirect taxes and High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council."

He announced the RS’ future practice – any issue that gets on the agenda of "common authorities" will previously have to be agreed with the FBiH.

"The RS is preparing agreements on the issues of state aid, population census, changes to the BiH Constitution in the part relevant to the Strasbourg Court verdict. The RS Government will adopt these documents as initial proposals and will then sent them to the FBiH Government," said Dodik.

RS President said that RS “requires the return of the constitutional framework” and will propose arrangements not only for the census, state property and constitutional changes, but for everything that was adopted at the state level and over which BiH had no constitutional jurisdiction.

Oslobođenje, front page and pgs 2-3 – The paper notes thattomorrow’s all-Serb gathering on Mount Jahorina reminds of the events in the early 1990s.

In his own name and in the name of Serb member of the BiH Presidency Nebojša Radmanović, RS President Milorad Dodik, probably to show who the real boss is and superior to everybody, even to the member of the BiH Presidency, called “a working and consultative meeting” on the first weekend day in Hotel Vučko.

Dodik has invited RS representatives in the BiH common institutions, representatives and delegates in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, SNSD and SDS leadership, but also directors of state institutions, such as Mirko Lujić (SIPA), Siniša Macan (Agency for Identification Documents), Petar Kovačević (Agency for Personal data Protection), Dragan Mektić (Service for Foreigners Affairs), Nevenka Savić (Directorate for European Integration), presidents of the BiH Constitutional Court and HJPC Miodrag Simović and Milorad Novković, State Ombudsman for Human Rights Ljubomir Sandić, Central Election Commission members Branko Petrić and Tihomir Vujičić, i.e. 49 senior officials in total.

By doing this, RS President has clearly shown that he wants to control everything, even directors of institutions that cannot be expected to report to him, but to the Council of Ministers and BiH’s Parliament, which have appointed them to their positions.

Dodik said that the topic of the meeting will be “discussion on the current political activities at the level of BiH’s common bodies – trends and tasks in the mandate period, fulfilment and deviation of the DPA, and the positioning of the RS”.

It is unknown whether CoM Chairman Nikola Špirić has been invited to the meeting, but Oslobodjenje learns unofficially that he will surely not attend it.

Halid Genjac, President of the Bosniak Caucus in BiH Parliament’s HoP and Chairman of the SDA Main Board, says the meeting represents an anti-Dayton activity. According to him, representatives of other ethnicities should have been invited as well. According to him, the meeting is unacceptable also because an entity does not have jurisdiction over the BiH institutions and that, therefore, state servants cannot report to entity leaders.

High Representative in BiH Valentin Inzko does not find disputable the gathering of only Serb representatives in the BiH institutions and he believes that today’s meeting on Jahorina will be constructive.

“I expect that certain progress will be made and that everything will lead to a faster forming of the state government,” said Inzko.

CoM Deputy Chairman and BiH Minister of Security Sadik Ahmetović says it is worrying that representatives of judicial institutions and directors of police and security agencies have been invited to the meeting “because that jeopardises their independence, i.e. they are unnecessarily being involved in the political sphere”. Ahmetović also says that events like this should urge the international community to make adequate moves.

 

Dnevni List, front page and pgs 2-3, Dnevni Avaz, pg 4, Oslobođenje, pg 9, Glas Srpske, pg 2, Nezavisne Novine, pg 3 - Peter Sørensen, newly appointed Head of Delegation and EU Special Representative in BiH, has said that OHR Head Valentin Inzko will be in charge of the Dayton-related matters, while he will deal with everything connected with the EU, “which is why I can’t see how we could have disagreements”.

Sørensen said that BiH “needs certain changes” and that he will focus on the future, and not on the past.

“The Dayton Agreement is a thing of the past. It was a necessary agreement of those circumstances. However, certain things have changed, time has passed, even the people have changed. That’s why certain changes are necessary,” Sørensen said Wednesday at a closed meeting of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee.

EuroBlic, pg 2 - SRNA news agency quoted RS President Milorad Dodik as saying that neither Sørensen nor any other ambassador to BiH can annul the Dayton Peace Agreement.

Dodik said Sørensen’s statement that the Dayton Agreement was a thing of the past was totally irresponsible.

“The Dayton Agreement is valid. The Dayton Constitution is in effect. Mr. European Ambassador, you are welcome here, we can talk about everything, it’s not a problem at all, but please leave the Dayton Agreement alone and we won’t have any problems,” Dodik said.

 

Oslobođenje, pg 7, Dnevni Avaz, pg 2 – The BiH High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) is the story of success, said High Representative in BiH Valentin Inzko yesterday, after a meeting with HJPC President Milorad Novković.

Inzko said his visit represented confirmation of the IC’s confidence in the HJPC’s professionalism and commitment.

 "We have confidence in the Council’s impartiality, competence and objectivity. Also, we have confidence in the will and desire of the Council to work optimally, and to improve their work every year," said Inzko.

He pointed out that the HJPC was successfully grappling with political pressure and criticism coming from certain circles.

"I am convinced that the HJPC will do their job in all cases and regardless of who they are and how much a person is important or influential," said Inzko, adding that no one can argue that the HJPC is dysfunctional, because it is "very functional".

"Such statements were politically motivated and groundless. The problem some have with the Council lies in the fact that they failed to take control over it, so they want to undermine or criticize its work," said Inzko, reiterating IC’s full support to the HJPC.

Novković said that yesterday’s meeting was another in a series of regular meetings where he talked about the activities of the HJPC, with the ultimate goal of preserving the basic principles of justice in BiH - independence, impartiality and objectivity.

He said that the HJPC is preparing for the structured dialogue and that the HJPC Presidency believes that reform of the judiciary is going in the right direction, adding that the HJPC will continue to work to make the judicial system in BiH even more efficient.

 

Dnevni Avaz, pg 10 – Associations of veterans in Republika Srpska will soon officially request Sarajevo City authorities to allow them to put up a memorial plaque honouring the JNA soldiers killed in former Dobrovoljačka Street.

Veterans organisations and many officials in Sarajevo are against this plan because they think that it represents a new provocation from the RS.

Nedeljko Mitrović, President of the RS Association of Families of Killed and Missing Soldiers and Civilians, tells Avaz that the names of the soldiers killed in Dobrovoljačka Street will not be written on the plaque.

“This would only open an unnecessary discussion on the number of soldiers killed there. Our proposal is to write only what happened that day,” says Mitrović.

 

Dnevni Avaz – Shameful: Profiteers in RS again increasing bread prices

Oslobođenje – Dodik calls all-Serb gathering on Mt. Jahorina

Nezavisne Novine – Dodik: Laws to be harmonised at entity levels

Glas Srpske – Dodik: RS will review some 200 laws adopted in BiH

Press RS – Policeman kills wife for T-shirt

EuroBlic – Dodik: We will not let Lagumdžija become BiH diplomacy chief

Dnevni List – Shocking: Policeman killed wife when she refused go find him T-shirt