VENTILATORS MAFIA

Watch the video from the hearing in the Court of B&H: Novalić knew that "raspberry" ventilators kill patients

Please forward this to the Prime Minister, because patients die on these respirators because their lungs rupture, Kučuković wrote in the message

Admir Aljimi

The trial of Bakir's Prime Minister Fadil Novalić and others in the "Ventilators" affair continued today in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to Novalić, the FB&H Minister of Finance Jelka Milićević, the suspended director of the Federal Civil Protection Administration (FCPA) Fahrudin Solak and Fikret Hodžić, the owner of the company "Srebrena malina", are also accused.


10.5 million KM paid in advance

Prosecutors Džermin Pašić and Mirza Hukeljić continued with the evidentiary proceedings, and during the hearing they presented a number of material pieces of evidence.

Hukeljić presented a document from the FCPA with which he wants to prove that there was no expert body in this institution that would evaluate the quality of medical equipment that was ordered. Evidence included bank statements confirming money transactions for the purchase of ventilators.An invoice for 10.5 million KM from July 14 last year was presented to the court, stating that the payment was made in advance.


Prosecutors Mirza Hukeljić and Džermin Pašić. Avaz

The Agency for medical products and medical devices and their inspectors also found that the ventilators were stored in a tent and kept on pallets without temperature control and other parameters, and found that the FCPA driver had taken the respirators from the airport without any supporting documentation.

Inspectors also determined that the FCPA tent "does not have the status of a customs warehouse". According to the inspector's report, no lighting or equipment for storing sensitive medical equipment was provided in that tent.

The prosecutor also showed SMS communication between Hasan Ganibegović, former Secretary of the FB&H Government, and a certain Edvin Kučuković, who is one of the intermediaries for the procurement of medical equipment.

It was written in the message: "Please forward this to the Prime Minister. I want my conscience to be clear in these difficult times. Beware of the respirators you have procured. Patients die on these respirators because they have a lung rupture. I can procure a thousand pieces of these ventilators for the price of $9,000 - Kučuković wrote.


Hodžić wanted to buy another 300 ventilators

Ganibegović forwarded this SMS to Novalić on Viber.

The court received communication via messages from Fikret Hodžić and Dušan Nešić and Kristijan Marić, with whom he was negotiating the purchase of ventilators. These are intermediaries for the procurement of medical equipment from Montenegro and Croatia. A conversation via WhatsApp between Kristijan Marić and Sanja Lekić was also shown, in which it was written that Hodžić would "get another 300 after buying 100 ventilators".


Solak "nowhere" with insight into the case

During the hearing, the defense complained that the Prosecutor's Office of B&H did not provide them with all the evidence. Prosecutors said that they were available for inspection at any time and that they had never refused such thing.

Solak's defense attorney, Marsela Bajramović, said that her client was suspended and that he has free time to go to the prosecutor's office for an inspection, but that he was allowed to do that once a week and that he was "nowhere with that".