Behind the Prosecutor of BiH from the U.S. “black list”

Diana Kajmakovic is currently a prosecutor in the War Crimes Department of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

She was appointed to this position by acting chief prosecutor Milanko Kajganic in August of this year. She was transferred from the position of head of the Special Department for Organized Crime and Corruption, to which she was appointed on October 25th, 2021.

The reason is that her name appeared in investigations involving the use of the encrypted Sky application. The application was used by criminals to communicate with each other.

After the United States (U.S.) FBI and Europol deciphered part of the messages and forwarded the information to the local police, arrests followed both in Europe and in BiH and in the countries of the Western Balkans. Kajmakovic was part of the team that analyzed these messages.

What is the U.S. accusing her of?

In the explanation of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of Finance, published on September 26th, it is stated that Diana Kajmakovic is “a flagrant example of a corrupt state prosecutor of BiH, connected to criminal organizations.”

It is added that “in support of drug dealers and other criminals, Kajmakovic helped conceal evidence, prevent criminal prosecution, and in other ways assisted illegal activities in exchange for personal gain.” She also, it is stated, “tried to block the investigation regarding individuals from the criminal milieu with whom she apparently cooperated.”

On September 27th, the Office of the Disciplinary Prosecutor of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) of BiH announced that they would investigate the reasons given by the OFAC, but that Kajmakovic would not be suspended for the time being.

Trials of drug traffickers

Kajmakovic, after working in the municipal court and prosecutor’s office and the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Sarajevo, became the prosecutor of the State Prosecutor’s Office of BiH in 2008.

She is best known to the public in BiH for the case “Zijad Turkovic and others”, who were sentenced to a total of 95 years in prison in 2015 as members of a criminal organization before the Court of BiH.

Kajmakovic was also the prosecutor in the trial against the brothers Jerko and Slavko Ivankovic Lijanovic, and several directors of their companies. This is a family that owned the meat industry from Siroki Brijeg, in the south of BiH. They were accused of money laundering and tax evasion.

The first-instance verdict sentenced them to 52 years and eight months in prison, as well as a fine of around two million euros. In addition, they were ordered to return the illegally acquired property benefit of around six million euros.

The Appellate Panel of the Court of BiH fully acquitted them in 2019, because part of the material evidence was declared illegal.

Political appointment of Kajmakovic’s husband

According to the annual financial report she submitted, Kajmakovic owns a house and land in Sarajevo, and an apartment in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Her husband Armin owns two apartments in Sarajevo.

The Government of the Federation of BiH (FBiH) appointed her husband as the director of Sarajevo International Airport, at the suggestion of the political party Union for a Better Future.

In the report of the Temporary Investigative Commission, which operated within the framework of the BiH Parliament, and whose goal was to determine the situation in the BiH judiciary, Kajmakovic was cited, among other things, as an example of a possible conflict of interest, Radio Slobodna Evropa writes.