The Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina accused Fahrudin Radončić, the president of the Alliance for a Better Future and a delegate in the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of leading a group that put pressure on Azra Sarić, a witness in the case of the murder of Ramiz Delalić Ćela, a member of the BiH criminal milieu, so that she would not incriminate Naser Keljmendi with her testimony. who, among other things, is being tried in Kosovo for this crime.
Thus, one of the most powerful and wealthy people in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended up behind bars, at least until his one-month detention expires. Who is the man whose arrest shook the political scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and how did he go from being a correspondent for the Zagreb newspaper Danas from Podgorica to becoming a media mogul and head of one of the strongest political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Fahrudin Radončić replaced the bench of delegates of the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliament and the chair of the first man of the Alliance for a Better Future with a detention cell. He was arrested on charges that he ordered pressure to be exerted on the witness in the case of the murder of Ramiz Delalić Ćele - Azra Sarić, so that she would testify in the proceedings against Naser Keljmendi, by which she would not incriminate him in this case. According to the accusations, Radončić exerted pressure on Sarićeva through his associates Bakir Dautbašić and Bilsena Šahman.
The spokesman of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, Boris Grubešić, says that more than twenty witnesses will be heard in the process.
"The prosecutor will prove the allegations from the indictment and the guilt of the mentioned persons by hearing twenty-seven witnesses, the findings of four expert experts and submitting more than 160 material pieces of evidence," said Grubešić.
At the same time, according to the indictment, with the help of Zijad Hadžijahić, otherwise an employee of the US Embassy in Sarajevo, he tried to check whether the investigation into the pressure on Sarić was being conducted in Kosovo, and to try to stop it.
In return, the appointment of his wife Nermana to the post of BiH ambassador to Slovenia was promised, and fulfilled. Because of this case, Bakir Izetbegović, a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was questioned at the BiH Prosecutor's Office.
"That appointment had nothing to do with the case of possibly influencing the witnesses, for which Mr. Dautbašić and Mr. Radončić are accused," claims Bakir Izetbegović.
For the leadership of Radončić's party, everything is a political setup and an attack on BiH's European path, according to Mirsad Đonlagić, vice president of the Alliance for a Better Future.
"SBB is completely convinced that President Fahrudin Radončić is absolutely innocent and that this is a blatant political montage aimed at destabilizing the Bosniak political factor, and thus destabilizing Bosnia and Herzegovina," Đonlagić said.
The path that Fahrudin Radončić traveled from being a correspondent for the Zagreb paper Danas from Podgorica to the owner of one of the most powerful media in BiH and the head of one of the most influential parties in the political life of BiH is full of controversies. RSE journalist Dimitrije Jovićević recalled the beginnings, related to his native Montenegro.
Jovićević states that Radončić graduated from the Higher Pedagogical School in Nikšić, Department of Art Education. He confirmed his penchant for drawing as a cartoonist, while at the age of 23 he became the editor of "Youth Movement", the newspaper of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ), whose imprint stated that he was "editor of entertainment".
The highlight of his journalistic involvement was Radončić's role as a correspondent for the Zagreb newspaper Danas from Montenegro, from 1989 until the beginning of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Radončić started dealing with politics very early as a member of the Union of Communists of Montenegro. He was the Executive Secretary of the Union of Communists of Titograd until 1988, when he was dismissed as part of the so-called The anti-bureaucratic revolution, by which the entire then communist elite in Montenegro left power and installed a new one suitable for Slobodan Milošević, personified by Momir Bulatović and Milo Đukanović.
However, it is precisely with Đukanović that Fahrudin Radončić has a long-standing friendship and close relationship, which, as confirmed by the Montenegrin Prime Minister, continues to this day.
Twenty years after he left Podgorica, Radončić created an empire in Sarajevo that is measured in hundreds of millions of euros. During the war, he became active in the office of the then Commander of the BiH Army, Sefer Halilović, and thanks to the support of the former President of the BiH Presidency, Alija Izetbegović, his influence steadily grew. He first formed Bošnjački avaz, which then became Dnevni avaz, today the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As the business grew, so did a printing house, a TV station, weekly newspapers... And then it was the turn of two towers, one on the site of the former newspaper Oslobođenje, which is now the Radon Plaza Hotel, and the other Avaz Twist Tower, the newspaper's headquarters. , but also his parties. He built business ties with today, to say the least, controversial people, including the Serbian businessman Miroslav Mišković, who is on trial in Serbia for numerous embezzlements.
Although they have no joint business in Serbia, two controversial businessmen founded the company Prezident Nekretnine in BiH in 2007. Delta Real Estate Belgrade, Vaniti International Corporation from Belize and Avaz Sarajevo were registered as owners. The partnership was short-lived, and was terminated after about 4 and a half million euros were paid to Avaz through Belize, which was the first installment for the planned shopping center, which later remained owned by Avaz.
This is where Naser Keljmendi, the accused drug dealer, for whom Radončić found himself in custody and under indictment, enters the story. The relationship was discovered almost seven years ago by Raffi Gregorian, the then first deputy high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He said in FTV's political magazine "60 minutes" that he advised Radončić to get out of business with Keljmendi.
"Because, as the investigation against Nasser Keljmendi develops, these funds will be frozen and if his funds appear in connection with this, then his funds will also be frozen. He did take that advice, he withdrew the money from Vanity International. It is an international company registered in Belize that does business with Keljmendi," Gregorian said at the time.
That relationship was broken, but, as the journalist of the Center for Investigative Journalism Mubarek Asani claims, not their friendship and other affairs.
"According to our research, Keljmendi had business cooperation with his company Avaz and they exchanged valuable real estate in Sarajevo and Zenica. According to the real estate exchange agreement, Avaz gave a house of about 450 m2 in Ilidža, and in return received from Keljmendi an office space of 120 m2 in Zenica. Keljmendi paid the price difference of 200 marks to Avaz's account. CIN also revealed that Keljmendi ordered three Grand Cherokee jeeps from the USA. Two armored vehicles were transported to Bosnia and Herzegovina despite the ban of the American authorities, and one of those banned cars was bought by Avaz," explains Asani.
With the arrest and subsequent indictment in Kosovo, Radončić was dragged into another affair with a person who is said to be one of the biggest underworld bosses in the Balkans. According to the allegations in the indictment against Keljmendi, he is connected with the murder of Ramiz Delalić Ćela, which was also stated by the international prosecutor Andrew Hughes when reading the indictment.
"Nasser Keljmendi in a joint venture according to our file number 23-60K with Fahrudin Radončič, Ekrem Lekić, Muhamed Gashi, Milovan Jeremic, Ljubiša Buha aka Čume, Milan Ostojić aka Sandokan, Naser Orić, Senad Šahinpašić, Nebojša Vukomanović, Strahinja Rašeta and others, organized, founded, supervised and directly managed the structure of an organized criminal group or actively participated in this group, knowing that his participation would contribute to the commission of the serious criminal offense of aggravated murder against the rival criminal leader Ramiz Delalić," the indictment stated.
RSE journalist from Kosovo Amra Zejneli talked about this case with Naser Keljmendi's lawyer, Besnik Berisha, who stated in a statement for our program that the name of Fahrudin Radončić was mentioned only in the statement of Šejla Turković. She told the Court that Radončić, in cooperation with others, participated in the preparations for the murder of Ramiz Delalić.
"By the way, no other witness ever mentioned his name, and her statement was not substantiated. As for his arrest, it is about another case that is not at all connected to this case in Kosovo. From what we have read, there is doubt about the influence on the witness in the process in which it is not clear whether that witness is from the process in Kosovo or from the one in Bosnia. As far as we know, there is another process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For now, it is impossible to conclude how much his arrest or detention is connected with the case of Mr. Keljmendi, but the fact is that his arrest looks more like a political struggle than an arrest based on legal facts," said Berisa.
Radončić, who is scheduled to appear before the Kosovo Court in connection with Delalić's murder as early as next month, says that he is being summoned as a witness.
"The EULEX court forbade prosecutor Hughes to refer to me as a defendant, but only as a witness," Radončić said on the occasion of the case.
Mubarek Asani states that despite the fact that Radončić denies friendly ties with Keljmendi and the connection with the indictment in Kosovo, the witnesses, who are themselves accused of Delalić's murder, claim otherwise.
"Radončić is behind the claim that he is not friends with Naser Keljmendi. However, other interlocutors named in the indictment, as well as members of that organized group, claimed to us that Radončić, as well as they together with Keljmendi, had joint meetings in Radon Plaza, which proved that Mr. Radončić was not telling the truth and that he was hiding something. , says Asani.
Fahrudin Radončić's appetites outgrew the business sphere, so in 2009 he formed the Alliance for a Better Future - a party that recorded respectable results on the political scene. Even though he "narrowly" missed out on the post of a member of the Presidency of BiH, which was held by his political rival Bakir Izetbegović, Radončić nevertheless tried his hand at power as the Minister of Security of BiH.
He announced a "tsunami" in the fight against crime, a solution to political murders that have been shrouded in secrecy for decades, and much more... However, after the protests in February 2014, Radončić was dismissed, and the Party of Democratic Action accused him of trying to execute a coup d'état. Then the party moved into the opposition, where it was until recently, when it formed a new coalition with the SDA, and Radončić returned to political life in a big way.
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