Murdered Bosnian Serb Sparks Controversy

A senior leader of the main Bosnian Serb Opposition Party was shot and killed in his party headquarters in the northern town of Doboj, media reported on Monday, stirring new speculations and controversies.

Branislav Garic, 43, was Deputy President of the Serb Democratic Party, SDS. He was also the head of the SDS Doboj branch and deputy chairman of the Doboj municipal council. He was killed in his office on Sunday afternoon.

“He was my right hand and the engine of our party. We are in shock,” said the SDS president, Mladen Bosic. “This is a dark day for our party but also for the entire (Serb-dominated Bosnian entity of) Republika Srpska, and society should ponder what is happening and where this is leading us.”

The killer turned himself in after the attack, local police reported, and stated it was still too early to speculate about the motives behind the murder.

However local media provided a few more details, which sparked speculations and new verbal clashes between the SDS and media close to the ruling Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD.

The controversy is even more significant considering that this incident reveals the sensitive nature and tense relations in the Bosnian-Serb political scene.

SDS was the main Bosnian-Serb party during and after Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war. Weakened by international sanctions, SDS, as of 2006, gave in to the SNSD party and its charismatic leader Milorad Dodik. SNSD overwhelmingly took over power of the state, entity and the local level, but few territories – such as Doboj – remained controlled by the SDS, after the October 2008 local elections. This, as well as the fact that Doboj, is one of the biggest and most developed municipalities in Republika Srpska, remained a thorn in the side of SNSD.

Media identified the killer as an owner of one of the most prominent local construction companies from Doboj. According to Banja Luka-based newspapers, Nezavisne Novine and Glas Srpske, the killer was one of the main financiers and supporters of the SDS party in Doboj, while in return his company frequently won public tenders for municipal construction projects.

These insinuations were immediately and vehemently denied by the SDS.

“The media regime are hiding political instigators of the crime,” SDS said in its statement on Sunday, and denied that Garic’s attacker was ever a member or financier of SDS.

SDS pledged to continue the fight against corruption, especially corruption in the construction related industries, in which Garic was embroiled in Doboj, as of May last year.