During the operation, which was carried out in cooperation with the EU Force (EUFOR) and the EU police mission in the country, the police forces of Bosnia's Croat-Muslim entity seized some documents acting on an order of the State Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Armed police officers were patrolling the premises and adjacent areas where the operation was carried out, and EUFOR vehicles were patrolling the city.
"In September 2005, acting on an order by the State Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the finance police seized a part of the documentation of the Hercegovina-Neretva Canton's interior ministry to check financial operations and the purchase of cars by the ministry," the cantonal interior minister, Tomislav Martinovic, said after today's session.
The prime minister of the cantonal government, Miroslav Coric, dismissed any suspicion about the unlawful spending of cantonal budgetary funds.
This has been the largest-scale police intervention since the spring of 2001 when the then NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) raided the building of Hercegovacka Banka and confiscated documents pertaining to the business operations of that financial institution. The operation was carried out due to suspicions that the bank's management was involved in murky business dealings. A former Bosnian Croat leader, Ante Jelavic, was sentenced to ten years in prison last year after a trial court in Sarajevo found him guilty of embezzlement of funds sent by Croatia to Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina through Hercegovacka Banka.