Kovačević remains in custody: the Court of Appeal rejected the appeal of his lawyer

The former director of the Real Estate Administration, Dragan Kovačević, remains in custody after the Court of Appeal rejected his lawyer's appeal as unfounded.

Kovačević's defense attorney appealed against the decision of the High Court in Podgorica from January 20 this year, which rejected his proposal to release Kovačević on bail, which consists in establishing a mortgage on real estate owned by the accused, with a total estimated value of 247.740 euros.

"Deciding on the appeal of the defense counsel of the accused, this court accepted the reasons given in the first-instance decision that the bail offered in the specific case does not represent a sufficient guarantee for securing the presence of the accused at the main trial and the unhindered conduct of the criminal proceedings, for which reasons it rejected it as unfounded," he announced. is Court of Appeal.

With the presentation of the defense, in the High Court in Podgorica, the trial of Kovačević and the other defendants that they are members of a criminal organization, which he formed due to, it is said, the appropriation of valuable plots of state land in the area of ​​Morski Dobr, recently began.

Kovačević recently denied in court that he formed a criminal organization, that is, that he abused his position in state bodies. He then said that he had worked to protect state property all his working life.

He was arrested in December 2020, after the SDT completed the investigation following the report of Aleksandar Gazivoda, whose co-ownership of the villa in Tivat, which he built with Kovačević, was transferred to the name of Danko Kovačević, the son of the former director of the Real Estate Administration, without his knowledge.

He escaped after the acting special prosecutor at the time "forgot" to extend his detention. He appeared in the courtroom almost a year and a half later, when he was arrested.

"I reject all counts of the indictment. Through my work, I fought against the illegal occupation of state-owned land. I have never formed a criminal organization in my life, and in 2011 I had neither the will nor the desire to form any criminal organization," Kovačević said earlier.