State Police has last week questioned the President and a member of Bosnia's Central Election Commission (CIK) over the candidacy validation of convicted war criminal Fikret Abdic who ran for mayor in northwestern Velika Kladusa in the 2016 local election, CIK spokesperson, Maksida Piric, told N1.

“Last week, in the premises of the CIK, Irena Hadziabdic, the President of CIK, and CIK member Stjepan Mikic were questioned by SIPA (State Protection and Investigation Agency) officers as witnesses in relation to the candidacy of Fikret Abdic in the 2016 local election,” Piric said.

Hadziabdic was not CIK President in 2016, but she was a member of it.

Abdic won the election that year.

A Croatian court had sentenced Abdic to 20 years in prison for war crimes in 2003, but Croatia's Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 15 years.

Abdic is considered a “traitor” among the Bosniak political establishment. The war crimes he was convicted of were committed against Bosniaks in northeastern Bosnia, where he established the ‘Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia’, between 1993 and 1995. He was behind the establishment of concentration camps where some 5,000 of his political opponents were held throughout this time.