On 11 March 2008, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) handed down the first-instance verdict, finding Mladen Begić guilty of the criminal offence of Tax Evasion and sentenced him to 2 (two) years of imprisonment. As an accessory punishment the Court fined him BAM 15,000 which the Accused is obliged to pay within 4 (four) months as of the day the verdict becomes final. The Accused is obliged to pay the amount of 90,753.60 BAM gained as a material benefit by committing a criminal offence. The Accused is obliged to pay this amount within 15 (fifteen) days as of the day the verdict becomes final.

The pronounced verdict contains inter alia the following findings: In the period between 23 December 2004 and 23 March 2005, in his capacity as a responsible person of the legal entity “Kamping” d.o.o. Posušje and as a tax-payer, with the intention of evading the payment of the sales tax, he sold goods obtained from suppliers he knew in the total value of KM 453,768.00 by retail and for cash to buyers known to him, without calculating and reporting transactions and also without paying the tax on them. In order to conceal that, by virtue of blank verified purchase orders and statements that the goods were intended for further sale to the legal entities ’’Tadžeks’’ d.o.o. Trebinje, ’’Suiping’’ d.o.o. Brčko Distrikt, ’’San Commerce’’ d.o.o. Sarajevo, ’’Čola-Prom’’ d.o.o. Laktaši, he made fictitious invoices and dispatch notes through his bookkeeping records. Falsely presenting that he had sold and delivered the goods to the referenced legal entities, the goods which were stated to have been intended for further sale, in order to create an appearance that such sale met the legally prescribed requirements for exemption from paying the sales tax, and the cash received for these retailed goods from the buyers he knew he presented as the bank payment transactions of the ’’Kamping’’ d.o.o. Posušje in consistence with his documentation fictitiously created, while that cash he handed over, directly or through middle men, to the owners of the legal entities ’’San Commerce’’ d.o.o. Sarajevo, ’’Suiping’’ d.o.o. Brčko Distrikt, ’’Čola-Prom’’ d.o.o. Laktaši and ’’Tadžeks’’ d.o.o. Trebinje, for the purpose of depositing that money into accounts of those legal entities and concomitant transferring into the account of the ’’Kamping’’ d.o.o. Posušje, in which he evaded and failed to pay the sales tax on products in the total amount 90,753.60 BAM.