The mayor of the northwestern Velika Kladusa municipality, convicted war criminal Fikret Abdic who is being investigated for abuse of office, returned to his office on Friday morning after he was released from pretrial detention so he can run for reelection in the 2020 local election.
Abdic was released after his defence attorneys appealed to the court and the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), arguing that he was being prevented from exercising his rights guaranteed by the election law.
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According to his Labour Party, however, the reason for the release is not the election, but his innocence.
“The Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has ended the pretrial detention of Fikret Abdic on September 9, 2020, because there was no crime, not because of the election campaign!,” Abdic’s Labour Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina said, arguing that the court in Bihac had denied a request to release him for election campaign purposes and that the CEC has not responded to the appeal yet.
Abdic was arrested in June and is along with six others being investigated for abuse of position or authority and violation of equality in economic activity.
He was previously sentenced in Croatia to 15 years in prison for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served ten a half years of that sentence and was released in 2012.
