DAMASCUS: French police discovered that the bullets that were found in Paris at the site of the terrorist attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were made in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
Experts said that since the collapse of Yugoslavia, the black market has been flooded with weapons and ammunition stolen from the arsenals of the former Yugoslav states. Zivko Marijanac, BiH deputy minister of defence, confirmed that the ammunition was made in the Igman arms factory in Konjic.
He said weapons that were made in the Yugoslav factories are now everywhere, but that does not necessarily mean that the weapons used in Paris came from BiH.
“I think the main problem is the large quantity of arms possessed by the population. Almost every house in BiH has ammunition,” Marijanac told SETimes. “Judicial authorities are the ones who are responsible for arms smuggling. Weapons cross the border, and the border is controlled by the police.”
The criminal offence of arms trafficking is international, and is characterised by organisation and acquaintance with criminal persons committing other crimes, he said. Officials said that timely exchange of operative data is crucial for the detection of this type of crime.
They added that often “pathways” of arms trafficking are followed by trafficking of illegal drugs and human trafficking.
“For the last four years, SIPA [BiH’s State Investigation and Protection Agency] has conducted investigations concerned with smuggling weapons. These were mostly military armament that was left over from the last war, and military and commercial explosives.
Police officers from SIPA achieved very good co-operation with police agencies in other countries, as well as with the intelligence services in the region,” Kristina Jozic, a spokeswoman for SIPA, told SETimes
