The company "Carinvest", which is owned by the family of the president of the Budva municipality Marko Bata Carevica, is trying to force the Government of Montenegro to sell it land in Krimovica for 1,2 million euros, which this company has usurped since 2015, according to the documentation obtained by the Research Center of the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS).
At the end of November last year, the company "Carinvest" submitted a lawsuit against Montenegro to the Basic Court of Kotor, requesting that it be recognized as the owner of over 620 thousand square meters of state land in Krimovica in the municipality of Kotor. In return, the company would pay 1,2 million euros, or 1,93 euros per square meter, into the state budget.
In the lawsuit, it is stated that the intention of the company "Carinvest" is to, through litigation, "acquire the ownership of land that until the engagement of the plaintiff (the company "Carinvest") was completely neglected, unused and without any benefits for the state of Montenegro.
The Tsarevićs further state in their lawsuit that from 2015 until today, they have repeatedly addressed state institutions and local government bodies, trying to regulate the status of the land they usurped, which they claim was "unused and forgotten by state authorities."
That Marko Bato Carević and his company have been counting on this "forgetfulness" of state authorities for years is also shown by the situation on the ground itself. While the state administration was "silent", Tsarević's machinery worked tirelessly. In less than seven years, Tsarević built a huge tourist-agricultural complex on usurped state land, which covers over 6 square meters.
All buildings on usurped state land were built without building permits and put into operation without use permits. The construction and equipping of the agricultural farm was generously supported by the state through subsidies and loans approved through the Investment and Development Fund (IRF).
That the state authorities had full information about what is happening on state land is also evidenced by the fact that each of the illegally erected buildings was duly registered in the Kotor cadastre and registered as the property of the company "Carinvest".
After the 2020 election, support for this illegal project became even more visible, so the illegal farm of Carevic was visited by the former prime minister Zdravko Krivokapic, but also the ministers of agriculture Aleksandar Stijović and urbanism Ratko Mitrović.
Now, after seven years of free use of state land for personal profit, Tsarević states in the lawsuit that he is ready for "legal and transparent negotiations on all disputed issues, and that he will always insist on a peaceful solution to this dispute if the defendant party (the state of Montenegro ) showed an understanding for the economic activity that made a completely devastated area a new value for the municipality (Kotor) and for the state and for this plaintiff (Carinvest company)".
Negotiations over Krimovica during the "Budva crisis"
Tsarević's lawsuit against Montenegro was preceded by at least one meeting with officials of the relevant ministries of the 41st Government of Montenegro, where Tsarević was apparently supported for what he illegally built in Krimovica.
According to the record document obtained by the MANS Research Center, on June 11, 2020, as a natural person in the Government of Montenegro building, Tsarević met with Milutin Simović, then Vice President for Economic Policy and Financial System, Minister of Finance Darko Radunović, and representatives of the Ministries of Agriculture and Urban Planning, as well as the Protection of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro.
The minutes state that the meeting was organized on the initiative of Tsarević, and that he rejected Simović's proposal to postpone the meeting because it coincided with the holding of the Budva Municipal Assembly (SO) session.
On the very day he was negotiating with the then ministers, Tsarević was voted no-confidence at a session of the Budva Council of Ministers. A few days later, clashes between the then coalition led by Tsarević and the police began, during which he was arrested.
"I am not burdened by the circumstance of holding a session of the Assembly of the Municipality of Budva, on the day of this meeting," said Carevic, according to the minutes.
At the meeting in the Government, it was stated that Tsarević built disputed buildings, that there is a request for the purchase of land that has been usurped, and that Tsarević will suspend further work on the development of the agricultural holding.
At the time, the Ministry of Urban Planning stated that the subject of legalization could only be what is on the ortho-photograph, namely six buildings, while there are as many as thirteen built on the ground.
The then Minister of Finance Radunović said that he had a "positive approach to this project, that what has been invested must be appreciated, that a series of business moves should be made, and that he was informed that the Plan of the Municipality of Kotor is awaited".
The conclusion of the meeting, as stated in the minutes, is that we should wait for the outcome of the legalization procedure and the General Regulation Plan.
None of the participants in the meeting, which lasted almost two hours in the building of the Government of Montenegro, pointed out to Tsarević the existence of criminal acts and the possibility of criminal responsibility for what was done in Krimovica.
Crimes without consequences
"Illegal occupation of land" is a criminal offense punishable by a fine or a prison sentence of up to one year, according to Article 254 of the Criminal Code of Montenegro (CC). Also, the Criminal Code sanctions the construction of buildings without a building permit, with a prison sentence of three months to three years.
Despite the filed criminal charges, Marko Bato Carević and his company "Carinvest" have so far not been held accountable for the usurpation of more than 612.000 square meters of state land and the illegal construction of over six thousand residential and commercial buildings.
The Basic State Prosecutor's Office (ODT) in Kotor last spoke on this topic in August of last year, noting that "the decision in the case will be made quickly." Since the decision has not yet been made, Tsarević and his company continued to illegally build and usurp on Krimovica, so that another building was completed, after the construction ban imposed by the Ministry of Urban Planning's inspection in September of last year.
The documentation obtained by the MANS Investigation Center shows that Tsarević has already admitted to committing the crime of usurping state land. Namely, as part of the documentation submitted by Tsarević in an attempt to legalize one of the buildings built in Krimovica, Marko Tsarević declared before a notary "under full moral, material and criminal responsibility that he built a building with his own funds on someone else's land" that was the subject of legalization .
He offers the state two incomplete ones, bought from Svetozar Marović for 20 euros
In the claim of the company "Carinvest", it is stated that the company is ready to pay the state 621 million euros for the usurped 1,2 thousand square meters, that is, about 1,9 euros per square meter.
The usurped land, which Tsarević is trying to transfer to his ownership in this way, is located on the first line of the coast, and even a superficial analysis of the real estate market for that part of the coast shows that the price offered by Tsarević is far below what the state could achieve if prevented Tsarević from usurping that part of the coast in time.
Advertisements through which natural persons sell plots in Krimovica show that the price per square meter ranges from 50 to 100 euros per square meter.
It is interesting that Tsarević already bought land in the immediate vicinity of what he usurped, but at a price ten times higher than what he is offering to the state. Thus, at the end of 2020, he bought land in Krimovica from the former high official of the DPS, the convicted leader of an organized criminal group, Svetozar Marović and his brother Dragan, at a price of 20 euros per square meter.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
