SIPA

The Prosecutor’s Office BH submitted to the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) an order on initiating an investigation against V.A., a police official of SIPA, Head of the Witness Protection Department, due to grounds for suspicion of having committed a criminal offence set out in Article 220, Paragraph (1) of the Criminal Code of BH “Abuse of Office or Official Authority”, in conjunction with Article 26 of the Code, in a case of an internal promotion advertisement in the State Investigation and Protection Agency dated 7 October 2011.

The order derives a legal basis requiring Internal Control Department of SIPA to initiate a disciplinary procedure before the Disciplinary Committee for the initiation and conduct of the disciplinary procedure against police officials.

Acting upon an order by the Internal Control Department, the Disciplinary Committee initiated a disciplinary procedure against the police official V.A. due to grounds for suspicion of having committed a serious violation of official duty “Behaviour that damages the reputation of the police body” set out in Article 105, Paragraph (1), Item 9) of the Law on Police Officials of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 5, Paragraph (1), Item 9) of the Rulebook on Disciplinary Responsibility of Police Officials of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Taking into account the nature of the violation, i.e. criminal offence the individual is suspected of, circumstances in which the criminal offence was committed, as well as the function of the mentioned individual, pursuant to Article 114, Paragraph (3), in conjunction with Articles 112 and 113 of the Law on Police Officials BH, on 3 June 2014 the Director of the State Investigation and Protection Agency adopted the Decision by which the police official V.A. was temporarily suspended from the Agency, starting on 3 June 2014 until the finalisation of the criminal investigation or the finalisation of the criminal procedure.