Bosnian Police Quizzed in Probe into Young Man’s Unexplained Death

The state prosecution has detained members of the Sarajevo Canton police force and the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina for questioning on Friday after it launched a new investigation into 22-year-old Dzenan Memic's death.

"We have been waiting for this for six-and-a-half years. This is a broader operation by the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I believe in a positive outcome because I also brought witnesses to them," Muriz Memic, the father of Dzenan Memic, said on Friday, N1 TV reported.

The unexplained death of Dzenan Memic, and the unresolved case of another young man who died in unclear circumstamces, David Dragicevic, have both sparked protests about alleged official negligence in Bosnia in recent years.

Memic died on February 15, 2016 after he was admitted to the hospital in the capital Sarajevo with severe injuries a week earlier. The prosecutor's office said Memic was injured in a traffic accident but his family disputed the explanation, pointing to a number of irregularities.

The arrests on Friday came after probes were launched into two former prosecutors in the Canton Sarajevo, Dalida Burzic and Meris Cato. In 2016, Burzic was the head prosecutor, while Cato was the acting prosecutor on the Memic case.

Burzic now works as a judge at the Bosnian state court and the Office of the Disciplinary Prosecutor filed a request for her temporary removal from her duties on Thursday.

The former commissioner of the Sarajevo police, Vahid Cosic, traffic police official Seval Kovacevic, Sarajevo police officers Sakib Kremo and Nurija Mehic and several unnamed others are also under investigation.

They are being investigated for murder and for aiding a perpetrator...