The Appellate Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) confirmed the first-instance verdict in the case "Respirators", by which the former Prime Minister of the Federation of BiH Fadil Novalić (SDA) was sentenced to four years in prison.
The former director of the Civil Protection Administration of the Federation of BiH (FUCZ), Fahrudin Solak, was sentenced to six years in prison, and Fikret Hodžić, the director of the company "Srebrna Malina", which procured defective respirators during the coronavirus pandemic, to five years in prison.
According to the verdict, the company "Srebrna malina" must return almost 700.000 convertible marks (about 386 thousand euros) and pay a fine of 200.000 KM (more than one hundred thousand euros) within sixty days after the final verdict.
Novalić assessed the whole process as "rigged", stating that "foreign directors and local performers brought the process to an end by grossly violating rights and trampling on justice".
Today, he wrote on his Facebook that he will "expose the structure" that designed the process against him and that in the coming days he will present all the information he has regarding what he considered to be a rigged process.
Novalić, Solak and Hodžić are accused of procuring one hundred respirators worth five million euros, which were imported by the company "Srebrna Malina" from China for the needs of the Federal Administration of Civil Protection (FUCZ) after the declaration of the coronavirus pandemic in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the spring of 2020. .
It later turned out that the respirators purchased were defective.
The trial lasted more than two years.
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