Bosniak leader on alleged spying affair: Attempt to destabilise Bosnia

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The strongest Bosniak party SDA discussed on Saturday the allegations of Croatia's attempts to recruit Bosnian citizens as spies. SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic assessed it as “an attempt to destabilise Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

It will not be possible to “sweep the truth under the rug,” said SDA leader and added that there are statements of people speaking in front of cameras proving these allegations.

A Bosnia-based investigative news outlet Zurnal published a story last week, claiming there is an alleged plot of Croatia's Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) to use Bosnian nationals as spies in an attempt to make the country look like a terrorist hub.

The story was followed by a series of confessions of Bosnian Muslims who said they were approached by the SOA agents asking to provide information for them.

After they refused, they were told to leave Croatia and were banned from entering the territory for several years.

SDA's senior official and current Bosniak member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency, Sefik Dzaferovic, said the collective head of state would discuss the issue.

“These are the serious matters and it all depends on the facts and on what is determined in the process,” said Dzaferovic.

“If those facts prove to be correct, and all that we can hear in public, we can openly say that this is one unacceptable relationship of the institutions of the neighbouring country towards the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that will certainly have its repercussions. Let us finish the work, determine the facts and see what is this all about,” said the Presidency member.