Sarajevo: A court in Bosnia ordered Thursday a one-month detention for Indian businessman Pramod Mittal and two other officials who have been suspected of involvement with organised crime and abuse of office at a Bosnian coke plant, the regional television reported here Friday.
Pramod Mittal, younger brother of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, heads the supervisory board and co-owns metallurgical coke producer Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL) in northern Bosnia, one of the country’s biggest exporters. He has been held in police custody since Tuesday, along with GIKIL’s general manager, Paramesh Bhattacharyya, and supervisory board member Razib Dash.
Prosecutor Camil Serhatlic told this agency that Pramod Mittal and the other two executives invoked their right to remain silent during the questioning in the town of Tuzla, and that the prosecution asked the Tuzla cantonal court for their one-month detention which the court accepted and passed the order. Neither the men nor their lawyers were immediately reachable for comment.
A spokeswoman for GIKIL told this agency she was not officially notified about the court’s order, which occurred during evening hours, Thursday.
Police said they seized documentation, computers and cell phones during a raid Tuesday at GIKIL. The company’s union members said Thursday the plant’s operation has not been interrupted. GIKIL, with around 1,000 employees in the town of Lukavac, is jointly run by Dubai-based Global Steel Holdings Ltd (GSH) and local government-owned KHK since 2003.
Last year, Bosnian police briefly detained GIKIL’s then-general manager over environmental negligence. He fled Bosnia just before the indictment against him was confirmed in early in 2019, the prosecutors said.
Agencies
