The Cantonal Court in Sarajevo will retry a former CEO of the Cantonal Public Transit Corporation (GRAS) Ibrahim Jusufranić and Branislav Petrović, a former head of GRAS’s tourism office, on charges of abuse of office and doctoring official documents.
The Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) upheld an appeal by the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Sarajevo to reverse a June 2018 acquittal of Jusufranić and Petrović because of substantial violations of criminal procedure law.
According to the indictment, Jusufranić, as GRAS’s CEO, abused office by passing an illegal decision to buy vehicle cleaning system thus damaging GRAS for over 880,000 KM. Jusufranić proposed the GRAS Board of Directors to buy new vehicle cleaning systems, but did not disclose that the company’s task force had already found this not to be economically viable. GRAS approved Jusufranić’s proposal and signed a contract with Elesprom firm from Slovenia to buy the cleaning systems that have not been put in operation since.
On another charge, Jusufranić and his colleague and brother-in-law Petrović damaged GRAS for 95,700 KM by helping a Sarajevo-branch of German company “Hellner & More” win a tender for the sale of advertisement space in GRAS’s vehicles.
Jusufranić did not comment on the FBiH Supreme Court’s decision.
The Court’s acquittal verdict stated that the Prosecutor’s Office had once dropped charges against the defendants. Then chairwoman of the Panel of Judges, Rozita Šimić, explained at the time that no new evidence had been introduced to support the filing of a new indictment.
CIN earlier wrote about Jusufranić’s property investments.
After he left GRAS, over a ten-year period the family bought three offices, two plots of land and a ruined summer house in Sarajevo as well as a plot of land in Travnik on which they built a University complex.
CIN uncovered that Jusufranić, together with his wife Smiljka and son Jasmin, invested at least 7.5 million KM in these properties.
Soon after he left GRAS in 2006, the police began an investigation on allegations that he had mismanaged nearly one million KM of the company’s money. After 17 years at its helm, he left GRAS saddled with 25.2 million KM of debt.
