Bosnia: Muslim official accused of giving Serb land to Saudi Arabia
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - May 29, 2008, Thursday

Text of report by Bosnian Serb state-owned daily Glas Srpske, on 29 May

[Report by S. Dusanic: "Bakir Izetbegovic Gave Land to Saudi Committee as Present"]

Sarajevo - Agreement on the transfer of ownership right to the land where the King Fahd Mosque is situated today, at the Alipasino Polje area in Sarajevo, was issued by Bakir Izetbegovic [currently deputy chairman of the Party of Democratic Action-SDA and a deputy in the B-H Assembly,] who was the head of the Sarajevo Cantonal Institute for Construction Affairs in 2003. The document was issued to the then High Saudi Committee and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This was stated by Damir Hadzic, mayor of Sarajevo's Novi Grad Municipality, for Glas Srpske.

"The institute transferred ownership of the land in the Alipasino Polje and the buildings around the mosque to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, without any compensation. Responsibility for such a situation is on the Institute for Construction Affairs and the then Director Bakir Izetbegovic, who conceded the land to Saudi Arabia," Hadzic said.

He added that Saudi Arabia addressed the Federation Tax Administration, at that time, asking if it had to pay the tax, considering that it was about the tax without compensation [as published,] but the tax authorities there told them that it was not needed.

"So, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was entered in the land register as the owner of land in Bosnia-Hercegovina," he said.

Asked how it could happen that the Institute for Construction Affairs gave land to another state in the middle of the capital, without the consent of the municipal or the state authorities, Hadzic said that 10 years ago, the municipal authorities were conducting activities on the expropriation, that is, solving the property issues, at the request of the Sarajevo Cantonal Institute for Construction Affairs.

"The Sarajevo Cantonal Institute for Construction Affairs was signing an agreement with the investor at that time. The municipal authorities transferred the ownership of the land to the institute in 1998, at its request, but I was not the head of the municipality at the time," Hadzic explained.

To whom the institute was giving the land, through agreements, after that, the municipal authorities were not informed, nor were they in charge of it.

"However, the papers and the documentation that I have examined indicate that the King Fahd Mosque is a religious building owned by the B-H Islamic Community. Nevertheless, the other buildings around the mosque at the Alipasino Polje, that is to say the educational centre and the accompanying buildings, are not owned by the Islamic Community, but by the High Saudi Committee, which no longer exists; now they are owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Hadzic said.

The High Saudi Committee was banned at the request of the US Government, which declared it to be one of the alleged humanitarian organizations that were, in fact, dealing in terrorist activities.

"Nobody asked us anything about this land or even the papers since I have been in this post, but we monitored what was happening in the mosque and the development of a strong Wahhabi movement, which is present there even today," Hadzic said.

It is evident that the Bosnian Muslims do not go there to pray, or they do, but very few of them, and not to the extent to which the others are present, those who accepted the Wahhabi way of practicing religion, Hadzic explained.

Hadzic noted that the municipal authorities could not take any responsibility for anything that happened in the King Fahd Mosque, because it was owned by another state.

Bakir Izetbegovic was not available on the telephone yesterday. Besim Mehmedic, the current director of the Sarajevo Cantonal Institute for Construction Affairs, said that the consent for the construction of the mosque, or any other building, was issued as long as there was a regulatory plan for it, but he did not know the details about this specific case until he saw the documentation.

The Embassy of Saudi Arabia has recently sent a request to the B-H Foreign Ministry for an approval to control the joint religious services during Ramadan in the King Fahd Mosque and around it at the Alipasino Polje.

Saudi Arabia has not addressed the B-H Islamic Community, which is in charge for the activities in the mosques.

The King Fahd Mosque was built on the land owned by the Sarajevo Serb Mladjen family. The Serb Orthodox Church has recently sent a request to the B-H Inter-religious Council for the return of this land, but this request was rejected.

[Box] "They Can Do Whatever They Want on Their Land"

"I do not know anything about the request by Saudi Arabia to the B-H Foreign Ministry, but the municipality cannot prevent Saudi Arabia, which is the owner, to do anything on their own land," Hadzic said.

He added that nobody had addressed the Novi Grad Municipality with a similar request, but that the municipal authorities could not do anything about it if the request was in accordance with the law.

Source: Glas Srpske, Banja Luka, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 29 May 08
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