SARAJEVO, March 28 (Hina) - A Bosnian Federal Deputy Interior Minister, Jozo Leutar, died in Sarajevo on 28 March of consequences of an bomb attack launched against him on 16 March this year. After sustaining grave injuries in the
assassination attempt in Sarajevo two week ago, Leutar was in critical condition and his health state was deteriorating continuously in the past seven days. Jozo Leutar was born in Tomislavgrad (then Duvno), south-western Bosnia-Herzegovina, on 23 October 1953, where he attended primary school. In Sarajevo he completed the secondary education at police school and later enrolled in the police college in Zagreb. After completing the education in Zagreb, Leutar returned to the Bosnian capital where got a job in the police department in the Novi Grad municipality. He enrolled in the Faculty of Political Studies in Sarajevo. In the end of the eighties, Leutar was promoted to the pos
SARAJEVO, March 28 (Hina) - A Bosnian Federal Deputy Interior
Minister, Jozo Leutar, died in Sarajevo on 28 March of consequences
of an bomb attack launched against him on 16 March this year.
After sustaining grave injuries in the assassination attempt in
Sarajevo two week ago, Leutar was in critical condition and his
health state was deteriorating continuously in the past seven
days.
Jozo Leutar was born in Tomislavgrad (then Duvno), south-western
Bosnia-Herzegovina, on 23 October 1953, where he attended primary
school.
In Sarajevo he completed the secondary education at police school
and later enrolled in the police college in Zagreb.
After completing the education in Zagreb, Leutar returned to the
Bosnian capital where got a job in the police department in the Novi
Grad municipality. He enrolled in the Faculty of Political Studies
in Sarajevo.
In the end of the eighties, Leutar was promoted to the post of the
commissioner of the police department in the suburb of Sarajevo
where he worked, thanks to his proven abilities.
When the war broke out in Sarajevo in 1992, he worked in the then
centre of the security services in Sarajevo where he lived with his
wife Nevenka and son Ivica.
His family remained in the besieged Sarajevo until the end of 1992.
That year Leutar joined a Croat police station in the Stup
outskirts. After Bosnian Serbs overran that part of Sarajevo,
Leutar moved in the nearby town of Kiseljak (under the control of
Bosnian Croat Defence Council, or HVO) and subsequently in Travnik
where he was appointed the commander of the HVO military police.
After (Moslem-led) Bosnian Army troops took over Travnik during the
Croat-Moslem conflict, Leutar moved in Livno and then in Mostar. In
this southern city he assumed the post of the Herzeg-Bosnian deputy
interior minister in autumn 1993.
Following the signing of the Washington Agreements, which put an
end to the conflict between Moslems and Croats and help establish
the Federation of these two constituent Bosnian peoples, Leutar was
appointed as a Federal Deputy Interior Minister and remained at
this post until his death.
In the recent years he was also a high-ranking official in the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) political party and was the
head of the HDZ branch in the Sarajevo (Vrhbosna) Canton.
Leutar was one of the first Bosnian Croat officials to return to and
live in Sarajevo immediately after the set-up of the Federation.
Unfortunately, he was seriously wounded two weeks ago in the blast
of a bomb attached to his car. His driver and another companion who
were in the car during the incident sustained light injuries.
An investigation launched in this bomb attack, which happened in
the Bosnian capital, has not yet yielded concrete results.
Apart from the federal Bosnian policemen, four FBI (US Federal
Bureau for Investigations) and ten professionals of the
International Police Task Force in Bosnia (IPTF) are also engaged
in the probe in that horrible assassination attempt.
(hina) ms