PASSINGS : Hamdija Pozderac; Ex-Vice President of Yugoslavia

Former Yugoslav Vice President Hamdija Pozderac, 64, forced to resign last September after his name was blackened in a scandal involving false domestic bonds. His brother Hakija, 69, also once a powerful politician, is awaiting trial in connection with the scandal in which an agro-industrial firm, Agrokomerc, issued almost $1 billion worth of false promissory notes. Promissory notes are widely used in socialist countries as a payment instrument. Agrokomerc issued the bonds, without financial guarantees, to fund an ambitious expansion program. The Pozderac family was Agrokomerc’s chief political backer. Hamdija Pozderac was a Moscow-educated Yugoslav Communist Party official and philosophy graduate who later taught sociology. He held most of the top party, state and parliamentary posts in his home region and became vice president in May, 1987. In Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, on Wednesday after a stroke.