BOSNIAN FEDERATION POLICE PRESS CHARGES AGAINST CROAT OFFICIALS

MOSTAR, Jan 29 (Hina) - The Bosnian Federation's Interior Ministry has filed charges with the entity's prosecution against six Croat officials for the abuse of office and divulging secrets, the ministry's press release office reported Wednesday. #L# The office released only the initials of the six officials. The first, D.C., are certain to be those of Dragan Covic, the incumbent member of the Bosnian Presidency. Covic and the other five persons are suspected of abuse of office in public institutions or state bodies three years ago, when Covic was the entity's finance minister, to secure funds for the Hercegovina osiguranje, Alpina Comerc and Croherc companies, said judges who wished to remain anonymous. The three above companies had business connections with Hercegovacka Bank whose accounts were frozen by the international community a year and a half ago, and from where, it was recently established, some EUR110 million vanished. This money was donated by the Croatian government as assistance to Bosnian Croats, especially for associations of the recent war in Bosnia. Charges against the Serb and Bosniak Presidency members, Mirko Sarovic and Sulejman Tihic, are not to be excluded, said the judges. According to them, Sarovic, the current Presidency chairman, would be charged in connection with the recent affair concerning the Orao military company from which weapons and military equipment were sold to Iraq. Sarovic was a member of the company's management board at the time of the affair. Tihic would be indicted of being the middle-man in arranging illegal marriages of Bosnian refugees in Germany at the time when he worked at the Bosnian consulate in this country some ten years ago. The marriages made it possible for the refugees to more easily acquire social welfare in Germany. (hina) lml sb