Former Education Minister in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity and professor at the University of Banja Luka, Nenad Suzic (71), was sentenced before Banja Luka District Court to nine years in prison for sexually harassing a fourteen-year-old girl, Srna news agency reported Monday.

The District Court announced the first instance verdict by which “the accused N.S. was found guilty of the criminal offence of having an intercourse with a child under the age of 15,” from the RS Criminal Code.

In addition to the nine-year prison sentence, Suzic was also given a security measure prohibiting him from performing the full vocation, activity or duty of a professor, during the performance of which direct contact is made with children.

The District Court announced that the accused was banned from approaching and communicating with certain individuals, namely, he was banned from approaching the injured party at a distance of fewer than 50 meters and banned from communicating with the said party for two years from the day the verdict becomes final. The Court added that the time spent serving a prison sentence is not included in the duration of this measure.

The verdict included the time spent in detention from June 5 to December 5, 2019, in the sentence of imprisonment.
Suzic was arrested in June 2019 after the victim's parents contacted the police after the girl told them that Suzic, who was their neighbour, had assaulted her.

The verdict is not final and the right to appeal is allowed.

Nenad Suzic was the RS Minister of Education (from 1998 to 2001), and he is a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Banja Luka. He has a master's degree with a thesis on moral education.