Car-bomb attack in Bugojno
{gallery}newsletters/5/1{/gallery} Haris Čaušević from Bugojno, commonly known as “Oks,” confessed to having detonated a bomb that damaged the Bugojno police station last Sunday, June 27. The powerful bomb, hidden in a car parked just in front of the station, exploded at dawn, causing considerable destruction. Officer Tarik Ljubuškić (41) died at the scene, and Officer Edina Hindić (26) was severely injured. Four other police sustained non-life threatening injuries.
There has been much speculation that a motive of Čaušević’s terrible attack on the BiH police in Bugojno was to slow down the Euro-Atlantic path of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with the visa liberalization process. Dr. Jasmin Ahić from Sarajevo Faculty of Criminology told the daily newspaper “Oslobođenje” that such a motive “seems quite possible, but we should wait until law enforcement services do their part of the job, and then these things will be much more clear.”
Also, Dr. Ahić points out that “the attack on the police station in Bugojno was a ‘terrorist act,’ with the intended consequence being, foremost, the loss of human lives in order to cause fear and panic amongst citizens”; however, he also notes that “the criminal act of ‘terrorism’ is difficult to prove in a court trial, regardless of material and other evidence, as it must be proven that the violence was used to either pressure political authorities or remove them bodily.”
During his interview with “Oslobođenje”, Dr. Ahić went on to draw a parallel with a case that happened in Vitez, in front of the FIS Shopping Center. At the end of the trial, the act was defined by the court not as a criminal act of ‘terrorism’ but instead as a criminal act of ‘premeditated murder with the use of an explosive device.’
Still, Tanja Fajon, European Parliament Rapporteur on visa liberalization for BiH and Albania, stated in her interview for „Deutsche Welle“ that the bombing attack in Bugojno will not influence the visa liberalization process of BiH.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has made solid progress in fulfilling the requirements for the abolishment of visas, and the attack in Bugojno should not influence acquiring “White Schengen”; however Dr. Fajon believes that even without the horrible events in Bugojno, it is “realistically impossible” for BiH to obtain visa liberalization this July.
“I hope that this will happen in early autumn,” she said, “that the European Parliament will do everything it can in order to vote on the issue by late September. BiH should, therefore, be included in the visa-free zone by the end of the year at the latest, and I hope that it will be at least a month before.”
Aner ZUKOVIĆ
Photo: FTV
