AFP/Sarajevo

Bosnia’s Islamic leader yesterday accused a senior US diplomat in the country of being behind a report carried in the local media that alleged Bosnia’s top Muslim officials were linked in a criminal network.

“Now we know who is behind a project to Satanise everything Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim),” the Dnevni Avaz daily quoted Mustafa Ceric as saying.

Bosnia’s top Islamic cleric was referring to Raffi Gregorian, the US deputy to the top international envoy to Bosnia, Valentin Inzko.

Earlier this week, the Dnevni Avaz and the weekly magazine Global published excerpts of the report and a criminal network diagram, allegedly prepared under Gregorian’s supervision, that featured a number of top Bosnian Muslim political, religious and business leaders.

Ceric and Fahrudin Radoncic, the owner of the country’s largest newspaper publisher Avaz, were shown at the centre of the criminal network, which also included the Muslim member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency Haris Silajdzic and the leader of the Muslim main Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Sulejman Tihic.

Both the Dnevni Avaz and the Global are published by Radoncic’s company.

According to the newspapers, the report said that the officials shown in the diagram drew “their influence and motivation from their political power, accumulation of wealth, support to criminals and also by strengthening and extending the influence of Islam in the region and globally.”

Ceric said the published documents resembled the “(Nazi Germany’s) final solution for Jews in Europe.”

However the SDA immediately rejected accusations against Gregorian and said it “fully supported” the fight against corruption led by the office of the international community’s High Representative (OHR).

“Over the years of working in Bosnia ... Gregorian has proven to be a true friend,” of the country, an SDA statement said.

The party labelled the references to Nazi Germany’s final solution for Jews “absolutely unacceptable.”

Allegations against Gregorian were also condemned by an association gathering several major labour unions.

“Accusations against you (Gregorian) can only embarrass our country in the eyes of the international community and particularly in the eyes of the US,” a unions statement said.

The US diplomat rejected the accusations and denied the existence of the report.

Inzko said he had ordered an internal investigation into the matter although expressed confidence in his employees.

The US government deplored the attacks against Gregorian.

“Gregorian enjoys the full confidence and support of the United States,” a statement by the US embassy in Sarajevo said.