Bosnian Serbs Probe Srebrenica Lobbyist's Alleged Fraud

A joint investigation by the Republika Srpska Tax Administration and police has found alleged evidence implicating the US-based lobbyist, Stefan Karganovic, in possible tax evasion and embezzlement of government funds, officials have said.

Republika Srpska police estimate that the lobbyist, who is of Serbian origin, owes the entity 53,000 euros in unpaid taxes.

However, officials said the final amount could be much higher since the police investigation and previous auditors' reports suggested that Karganovic was handling much bigger funds during his employment by a non-government organisation funded by the Republika Srpska authorities.

BIRN contacted Karganovic for his reaction but he said he did not know about the allegations and did not want to speak about them.

Karganovic is a historian of Serbian origin who was living in the US but now lives in Belgrade. In 2008 he was appointed as the head of an NGO called the Historical Project Srebrenica, which was formally based in the Netherlands.

Karganovic was hired to dispute facts established by the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in The Hague about the genocide which Bosnian Serb forces committed in July 1995 against Bosniaks from Srebrenica.

The former prime minister and now president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, announced in 2007 that his government would revise a report which was prepared by the entity's previous government in 2004, which confirmed that Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 7,000 Bosniaks during and after the fall of Srebrenica.

Last June, a month before the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, Dodik also announced his intention to challenge the findings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the...