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Due to the abuse of official position, the acting executive director for legal affairs of “Autoputevi RS” Siniša Gavrić was convicted in the Basic Court in Teslić, eTrafika learns.
Gavrić was sentenced to six months in prison – conditional two years. This means that, if he repeats the crime within two years, he will be sentenced to six months in prison. In addition, he was fined 500 KM. Gavrić was convicted for crimes he committed while he was the head of the Parking Service in Teslić.
It is interesting that Gavrić got a job in “Autoputevi” while criminal proceedings were being conducted against him for this serious crime.
In the Teslić Basic Court, we were told that he was convicted for the criminal offence of abuse of the position of a responsible person from Article 249, paragraph 2, in connection with paragraph 1. If you look at the Criminal Code of Republika Srpska, you can see that the sentence imposed on Gavrić is significantly below the legal minimum.
The Law states that if a responsible person who, by taking advantage of his position or authority, exceeds the limits of his authority or fails to fulfil his duty, obtains an illegal material benefit for himself or another natural or legal person or causes material damage to another, unless the characteristics of another criminal offence have been fulfilled thereby, shall be punished by imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine.
“If, by committing the act referred to in this article, a financial gain exceeding the amount of 10,000 KM is obtained, the perpetrator will be punished with a prison sentence of one to five years and a fine, and if that amount exceeds 50,000 KM, with a prison sentence of two to ten years and a fine”, it is specified in the Law.
Gavrić’s political career is also interesting, he was a member of the SDS and then moved to the DNS, where he was elected president of the Teslić committee. However, Gavrić is now in SNSD.
Let us remind you that Siniša Gavrić was employed as the head of the Parking Service in Teslić, and the case of embezzlement of parking tickets in that city was discovered back in 2017, and then the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska filed a report against the suspects. Gavrić suspected that in parallel with the procurement of municipal parking tickets, he organized the printing of an unspecified amount of falsified tickets, which he sold to a distributor and took the money.
After the arrest, police inspectors that day searched Gavrić’s house and official office, as well as the business premises of the copy shop and bookstore “Kopi centar”. Gavrić was accused of having, together with several other people, printed a large number of falsified parking cards for five years, which they then sold, which, to the detriment of the municipality, obtained a property benefit of several tens of thousands of marks.
By the way, charging for parking in Teslić at that time was done through tickets that were sold at newsagents and other facilities, and on which drivers indicate the parking time themselves.
However, this investigation and the indictment against him did not pose a problem for Gavrić to get the job of acting director in a state-owned company.
Namely, on February 18, 2020, the Supervisory Board of the public company “Autoputevi RS” appointed Gavrić as acting executive director for legal affairs of the public company “Autoputevi RS”. When signing the contract for work, he had to provide a certificate that no criminal proceedings were being conducted against him.
“Autoputevi RS” did not answer our questions about whether Gavrić will be dismissed from his position.
“Transparency International” spokesperson Srđan Trajlić told us that there is no legal basis for him not being able to perform his current function, but that an ethical question arises as to whether it is okay for him to remain in office despite the conviction for abuse of office.
“We have been fighting for a long time to change these laws in order to prohibit people from performing similar functions in such cases”, said Trajlić.
He added that it is also disputed that the current legal limits are not being respected, but that he will do everything to change that in the coming period.
We remind you that the Government of the RS and the President of the RS Milorad Dodik announced after the formation of the current government that there would be no places for convicted persons in the highest positions in the aforementioned entity. A day after he was appointed to the position of Minister of Family, Youth and Sports of the RS, Dado Dogan resigned because he hid the traffic accident in which his best friend died in 2012 and for which he served a year in prison. On the same basis, Dragoslav Kabić was dismissed from the position of Minister of Labor and Veterans’ and Disability Protection, due to an accident that occurred 24 years ago.
And that was all. When the media and the public focused their attention on Petar Đokić, the leader of the SP and eternal minister, who was legally sentenced to three months in prison in 2007 because his private company stole impulses from Telekom Srpska and thus earned 140,000 marks, the leader SNSD withdrew. If Đokić justified his stay by saying that he could not influence the coalition elections, the appointment of SNSD’s Zoran Tegeltija as Minister of Finance in the Council of Ministers of BiH, who was legally sentenced to five months of probation before the Basic Court in Banja Luka for negligent work in the service while he was head of the Sector for Customs Legal Affairs of the Banjaluka Customs Administration, showed that the dismissal of Dogan and Kabić was just a “colourful lie” by Dodik.
From that moment on, the highest officials from Republika Srpska did not problematize the appointment of convicted persons to the most important positions in the state. Nor do they show any signs that this practice will end.