English

Dual citizenship enables jail avoidance

Miloš i Svetozar Marović

We can often witness that some people charged with thefts and serious financial fraud live freely in some other countries as if nothing had happened. This has become a regional issue and thanks to the dual citizenship, these people even enjoy certain benefits!

The Interpol Red Notice doesn’t make any sense in such cases although every country bragged about acceding to it and committed to meet its requirements. What exactly is going on?

Zdravko Mamić, former Dinamo director, represents the latest such example. He was charged with embezzlement and tax fraud in Croatia, having taken a cut from player sales, ultimately costing Dinamo and the state. He was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. However, after he was arrested in B&H, he was released soon after with a justification that he’s been a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that he can’t be extradited to Croatia, as there’s no bilateral agreement between the states stipulating different.

The day before the final judgement, Mamić went to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On the other side, we have Montenegro and Serbia trying to ‘make a deal’ on how to extradite Svetozar and Miloš Marović. Both were sentenced to prison in Montenegro but now live freely in Serbia. After the final judgement, Miloš Marović got Serbian citizenship. Meanwhile, no one explained how could that possibly happen!

According to criminologist, Zlatko Nikolić, things could have been solved much more easily in ‘Marovic case’.

“Why we now have a different situation, I don’t know. If there’s a strong political will, everything can be fixed and both can be extradited. It seems that everything’s about politics,” claims Nikolić.

 

 

 

Send this to a friend