The Basic Court in Kotor, in the first-instance proceedings, found the owner and director of the Podgorica company "Saniteko Group" Vladimir Brnović guilty of assault on an official and sentenced him to six months in prison, suspended for a period of 18 months.
Brnović was convicted because, according to the court's findings, he committed the criminal offense of assaulting an official in the performance of his official duties on December 10 last year in the premises of the Municipality of Tivat, according to the Secretary for Communal and Inspection Supervision Jelena Šćekić, that is, the President of the Municipality Željko Komnenović.
In the first-instance verdict handed down by judge Momirka Tešić on March 28 and delivered to the address of the Municipality, it is written that the businessman from Podgorica knowingly and deliberately committed the criminal offense charged against him because he threatened Šćekićka and Komnenović that, in the event that they implement the decision of the competent office of the Municipality to remove Brnović's illegally erected temporary building in the sea property zone in Tivat, he will "burn down the houses".
As it is written in the explanation of the verdict, Brnović came to the Municipality that day at the invitation of the municipal inspector who was leading the administrative procedure for the removal of his illegally erected temporary catering facility as part of the "Saniteko" marina in the bay of Brdišta near Tivat. Then, in the office of secretary Jelena Šćekić, in front of the witness, municipal inspector Nataša Samardžić, he threatened her that, in the event that the inspection removes the building whose demolition was scheduled for December 17, Mayor Komnenović and secretary Šćekić would "burn down the houses".
On October 5 of last year, the Municipal Inspection ordered "Saniteka" to "completely remove the catering facility Marina Airport - a brick bar with a terrace of 100 square meters with all the catering furniture and the metal construction of the awning" from the cadastral plot 635/2 KO Đuraševići and to return the area to its original state because, as the inspection concluded, the facility was "set up without registration and documentation prescribed by Article 117 of the Law on Spatial Planning and Building Construction".
Such an order was preceded by the procedure of inspection and administrative proceedings, which began on July 22. From then until mid-December last year, "Saniteko" did not provide the necessary documentation for the installation of a temporary facility in the marine property zone, so on December 17, the company "Protection of the Area of Montenegro" with the assistance of the Intervention Unit of the CB Herceg Novi, was supposed to demolish the facility in the Brdišta bay. In that bay, by the way, Brnović's company has been holding a much larger temporary facility for several years - an entire smaller marina that was designed by the former Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT) at the time when it was headed by Pavle Radulović (DPS), and the company Morsko dobro, which signed a contract with "Sanitek" on the lease of that location, was led by Predrag Jelušić (DPS).
Dissatisfied with the fact that after a four-month struggle with the Municipal Inspection, he will be left without a wildly erected catering facility, on December 10, Brnović, with insults and addressing Šćekić in a raised tone, said that he would not allow the removal, which is why he parked his company's machines on the access road so that the enforcement officers could not access the facility. He claimed that he had never built anything illegally in his life, not even the disputed building for which Brnović said that "the director of the Marine Property told him to build it and that it would go through the procedure." After leaving Šćekić's office, Brnović allegedly said in a raised tone that his persecution was on political grounds "because he is a Montenegrin, and the president of the municipality wants to expel all Montenegrins so that only Serbs can work".
Due to the threats sent to them by Brnović, Šćekićeva and Komnenović filed a report against him to the police, after which the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Kotor filed a criminal complaint for assaulting an official in the performance of official duties.
A few days after that, Brnović himself removed the object in question.
In the proceedings before the Basic Court, the owner of Sanitek denied that he had committed the criminal offense charged by the prosecution and defended himself by claiming that the allegations of Šćekić and Komnenović that he agreed to set their houses on fire were "unfounded and incorrect". He claimed that he requested the exemption of acting municipal inspector and secretary Šćekić four times from the administrative procedure that the Municipality led for the removal of his catering facility and said that he supposedly has a permit for that facility from 2019, but that the Tivat Municipal Inspection cannot ask him for it because that body became competent for temporary facilities in the marine resource zone only in mid-2020. He said that the Municipal Inspection is treating him and his company "non-objectively" and that they cannot demolish his building until the end of the proceedings on the lawsuit that he has filed against the local administration of Tivat before the Administrative Court.
He said that the former director of the Maritime Property, Predrag Jelušić, allegedly told him that he was free to build the disputed facility "and that it will go through the procedure" and be subsequently legalized through the new Program for Temporary Buildings in the Maritime Property Zone for the period 2019-2023, as well as that "Morski Dobr inspectors came and were familiar with the construction", and that there is all the documentation about what "Saniteko" was doing in the Brdišta bay.
In the verdict, Judge Tešić said that Brnović's claims were refuted by the testimony of witnesses and stated that Brnović's testimony was "aimed at avoiding guilt".
"Appreciating the subjective attitude of the defendant towards the committed criminal act, the court found that he, acting in the manner described in more detail in the sentence, acted with direct intent, that he was aware of his act and that he wanted it to be carried out, that is, he was aware that by this behavior towards the injured parties as officials in the performance of their official duties... he was committing a criminal act, and that was his intention, i.e. that is what he wanted," the verdict reads.
Judge Tešić took the fact that he had not been criminally convicted so far as a mitigating circumstance for Brnović.
Bonus video:
