Dismissed prosecutor Sasa Labotic decides – there will be no investigation against “Friends of Vlado Djajic”

One of the last prosecutorial decisions of the recently dismissed prosecutor Sasa Labotić is the order not to conduct an investigation against persons who presented themselves as “Friends of Vlado Đajić”, due to the misuse of patients’ personal data for political purposes.

Banja Luka, 1. November 2019 – One of the last prosecutorial decisions of the recently dismissed prosecutor Sasa Labotić is the order not to conduct an investigation against persons who presented themselves as “Friends of Vlado Đajić”, due to misuse of patients’ personal data for political purposes. Transparency International in BiH (TI BIH) has filed a criminal complaint against these individuals with the Banja Luka District Public Prosecutor’s Office (Prosecutor’s Office) based on an audio recording of a woman’s voice urging citizens to vote for Dr. Djajic.

The report due to the misuse of personal data was submitted in October last year, and the Prosecutor’s Office determined the identity of the persons who called the citizens for a year. In the end, it was established that the calls came from the official phone of the University Clinical Center of RS (UCC RS), but even that was not enough to open an investigation.

Vlado Đajić was also questioned by the police as a witness, who stated that he did not know the numbers from which citizens were invited to vote for him. He stated that he had never given anyone a list of patients, and that he knew that his personal data should not be used for political purposes. However, the use of the list of patients for political purposes for the prosecution is not disputable, so it remains unclear why evidence was collected at all, because prosecutor Labotić finally issued an order not to conduct an investigation. It states that the telephone number given for the purposes of health records is not personal data, and therefore no criminal offense has been committed.

TI BIH filed a complaint to the Collegium of Prosecutors, emphasizing that according to the Law on Personal Data Protection of BIH, the telephone number certainly represents personal data and its unauthorized use enjoys criminal legal protection. TI BiH is of the opinion that in this particular case all elements of the criminal offense of Unauthorized Use of Personal Data have been fulfilled and that this is obvious on the basis of an audio recording in which an unknown person admits that the phone numbers are from the list of patients examined by Dr. Djajic. Also, it is unclear how the Prosecutor’s Office failed to establish the identity of the persons who present themselves as “Friends of Vlado Đajić”, because this group has a page on the social network through which it monitors the work of the doctor and his political activities.

It is interesting that this decision of the prosecution is one of the last ones signed by the controversial prosecutor Saša Labotić, only five days before he was dismissed by the decision of the HJPC for hiding the information that he was convicted. Labotic became known to the general public as the prosecutor who filed the indictment against the murdered David Dragicevic, six days after his body was found, which is considered one of the biggest scandals in the history of BiH justice.

Press rls 11/1/2019