CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST ADEMOVIĆ FOR INCITING NATIONAL HATRED

ISTOČNO SARAJEVO, FEBRUARY 2 /SRNA/ - Analyst Dževad Galijašević has filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor's Office of BiH against the Chairman of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH Kemal Ademović for the criminal offence of inciting national, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance.

Galijašević told SRNA that he filed the complaint because, during the opening of a session that was broadcast live, Ademović deliberately ignored the prepared reminder in the formal part of his address while announcing quorum information and, instead of the name of Serbian delegate Radovan Kovačević written in the text, pronounced the name of the first President of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadžić.

In the complaint, Galijašević stated that Ademović was undoubtedly aware that he publicly incited and inflamed national and religious hatred among Bosniaks, that is, Muslims, directing it toward all representatives of the Serbian people and the Republika Srpska. He allegedly abused the fact that one of the delegates in the Serb caucus is named Radovan and bears the surname Kovačević, which shares the same initial letter as the surname Karadžić.

"The reported individual, in an overheated political climate burdened by the lack of political consensus on holding sessions of the House of Peoples, and as an actor who for a prolonged period has publicly accused representatives of the Serb and Croat caucuses of obstructing sessions, sought in a symbolic manner to equate delegate Radovan Kovačević, and through him other representatives of the Serb people, with the figure and legacy of Radovan Karadžić, who is a widely reviled figure in a large part of the Bosniak and Muslim public.

This constitutes an act by which the reported individual intended to create additional discord and intolerance among the constituent peoples and others, as well as among all who live in or stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina," the complaint states.

The complainant further noted that Ademović is a long-time former employee and senior official within state security services and is therefore familiar with the methods of special warfare, into which the act for which he is being reported on this occasion can be classified. This, he added, is a pattern by which Ademović has previously been known in the public and for which he has been publicly criticized on numerous occasions.

"The act of the reported individual is particularly serious because it was committed in a manner that made it accessible to the public through a television broadcast and the presence of a large number of journalists-facts of which the reported individual was aware, given that he is the official who convenes sessions of the House of Peoples. It is therefore evident that he intended to exploit these circumstances in order to amplify the effect of the committed act. The fact that the reported individual holds the office of Chair of the House of Peoples further aggravates the gravity of the offence," the complaint concludes.