Bosnian Muslim leader defends international officials

Nov 6, 2009, 16:42 GMT

Sarajevo - Sulejman Tihic, a top Bosnian Muslim leader, sided on Friday with international officials who have accused Bosnian politicians of having ties to organized crime, Bosnian media reported Friday.

Bosnian media recently published internal reports of the Office of the High Representative on alleged ties between top Bosnian politicians and the underworld.

In doing so, they have managed for the first time to unite all ethnic groups in Bosnia against the OHR, an international organization charged with implementing the Dayton peace agreement, and Raffi Gregorian, OHR's deputy chief, whom they see as the main culprit for the reports.

'Serbs, Croats and Muslims turn every possible process against them into a national interest or an attack on the (self-ruling ethnic) entities, which is not true,' Tihic, the leader biggest Muslim party in Bosnia SDP, told the daily Oslobodjenje Friday.

Oslobodjenje reported Thursday that, according to an OHR report, the prime minister of the Serb Republic, Milorad Dodik, and other top Serb officials have a private police force consisting of former military intelligence officers from the 1992-95 Bosnia war who have ties to criminal groups and spy on foreign officials in Bosnia.

'These reports speak about the bad intentions of the people from the OHR,' Dodik told reporters in Sarajevo Thursday.

Last week Global magazine published another OHR report on connections between top Muslim officials and businessmen and members of organized criminal groups.

Among the officials mentioned in the report are Mustafa Ceric, the head of the Islamic Community in Bosnia; Haris Silajdzic, a member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency; and Fahrudin Radoncic, the owner of Global and one of the most powerful Muslim tycoons in Bosnia.

Ceric and Radoncic immediately dismissed all accusations, saying the authors of the report are 'Islamophobic' and are trying to tie Muslim leaders to terrorism and crime. They also accused Gregorian of being the mastermind behind the reports.

'The fact that such reports are made for Serbs and Croats as well proves that Gregorian is not in Bosnia to implement peace but to produce chaos so that he can stay as long as possible and earn as much as he can,' Radoncic was quoted as saying.

Radoncic said he plans to sue Gregorian for 50 million euros for damaging his professional reputation.

Ceric compared the reports to a 'final solution to the Jewish problem in the World War II.'

'I do not take that seriously,' Gregorian told Federal TV earlier this week. 'We did nothing wrong. There are no targets nor inquiries,' he added.

Bosnian media are speculating that a similar report exists on ties between Croatian officials and organized crime.