There is no legal basis for the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office to further review the plea agreements of members of an organized criminal group. Svetozar Marović concluded in million-dollar affairs with the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT).
This stems from the VDT's response submitted to the Secretariat for Property Protection of the Municipality of Budva, which "Vijesti" had access to.
Secretary Đorđe Zenović he directed the recently appointed VDT Milorad Marković letter in which he demanded that the plea agreements be reconsidered. He reminded that he had sent a similar letter to his predecessor Maja Jovanović, to which he indicated that the agreements concluded by the arrested special prosecutor should be reviewed Sasa Cadjenovic and his colleague Lidija Vukcevic with members of the Budva criminal group, which violated the rights of the Municipality of Budva to fair compensation for damages, and the defendants "got off cheap".
However, the VDT received a reply to the address of the Secretariat that they cannot deal with concluded agreements for which there are final judgments.
"Regarding your submission that you sent to the VDT, in which you request that the Plea Agreements from an earlier period be reviewed, which, as you claim, damaged the Municipality of Budva, I inform you that the agreements were adopted by the competent court and that on the basis of them make final judgments. In this regard, there is no legal basis for the State Prosecutor's Office to further review plea agreements," replied the State Prosecutor. Veljko Rutović.
Zenović, in his submission, submitted to Marković at the beginning of February, emphasized that the agreements concluded at the time Milivoj Katnić, inflicted multimillion-dollar damage to the Municipality of Budva.
"The reason for our address is your statement... in which you expressed your willingness to supervise the procedure and content of plea agreements concluded during the previous leadership of the Supreme and Special Prosecutor's Offices. Our Secretariat has already addressed a complaint about the work of certain special prosecutors to the Prosecutor's Council (specifically to the then acting VDT Maja Jovanović), who, after the actions of the control of the prosecutors, determined that there were no omissions in the work, which we, as an authority that is obliged to take care of we absolutely do not agree on the interests of the Municipality of Budva regarding the disposal of the property," Zenović emphasized in the submission submitted to Marković.
The Prosecutor's Office hid the assessment of the pledged property
In his letter to Marković, Zenović pointed out that he expresses open doubts about the conscientious work and actions of competent prosecutors and heads of prosecutions, and above all SDT, who concluded plea agreements with persons who were suspected of having damaged the budget of the Municipality of Budva.
"The cases for which criminal charges have been filed over the years due to the existence of a well-founded suspicion that the actions of state and local officials, as well as other persons, have committed criminal acts that have damaged the budget of the Municipality of Budva are very well recognized by the public. A certain number of those criminal proceedings were ended by reaching an agreement with the competent prosecution, and on the basis of them, final court verdicts were passed, according to which the convicted were obliged to compensate the Municipality of Budva for the monetary damage caused. As a means of securing compensation for awarded monetary damages, the prosecution accepted immovable property, the value of which in most cases, in our opinion, did not correspond to the amount of compensation awarded. In some cases, the Municipality demanded from the prosecutor's office to submit an estimate of the value of immovable property which was a guarantee for the payment of damages according to judgments, we received answers that the estimates enjoy a certain degree of secrecy, which is why we were not able to convince ourselves of a transparent and legal procedure evaluation, which additionally raises doubts about abuses that have been carried out".
The sale of Marović's property did not settle even a quarter of the damages
He stated that by passing a final court judgment based on such agreements, the Municipality lost the possibility to reopen the completed proceedings, although he believes that the amounts awarded are not adequately covered by guarantees in the form of immovable property.
"For this reason, we are now in a situation where, after the sale of immovable property that was awarded as a means of security, we are unable to settle even a quarter of the amount that had to be paid to the Municipality of Budva based on final judgments. Such is, for example, the example with the property that was assigned to us as a means of security according to the judgment of the High Court in the case of Svetozar Marović. The situation is similar with other cases in which the Municipality is on the side of the injured party. We inform you that the criminal charges against the so-called 'Budva group' were processed by the SDT by concluding several plea agreements, while the obligation to compensate the Municipality of Budva was always on the side of one natural or legal person. For this reason, we inform you that the Municipality of Budva is dissatisfied with the work of the SDT in the cases against the "Budva group"..."
Agreements between Saša Čađenović and Lidija Vukčević
Zenović emphasizes that all disputed legal cases, the execution of which represented a criminal offense and for which plea agreements were concluded, are in force. He reminded that the Municipality of Budva was compensated through three agreements.
"Agreement No. KT - S dated May 18, 05 (prosecutor Saša Čađenović), Agreement KT - S dated January 2016, 4 (prosecutor Lidija Vukčević) and Agreement KT - S dated June 2016, 9 (prosecutor Saša Čađenović). In the specific Plea Agreements, the Municipality of Budva received immovable properties, which are known to have a lower value than the market value, in the name of a property-legal claim. We believe that in all the aforementioned agreements, the prosecution had to insist on the annulment of those legal affairs that were carried out by abuse of official position, which would also mean the annulment of all the consequences that arose from such affairs for the Municipality of Budva. As a body that takes care of the property of the Municipality of Budva and its citizens, I hope that you will appreciate our letter and that you will understand the situation we are in due to, in our opinion, the obvious abuse of the institution of the plea agreement and the negligent work of the competent prosecutors and heads of the prosecution. . We understand that we have already taken advantage of the possibility of lodging a complaint against the work of specific prosecutors and that the Prosecutorial Council has already made a statement about it, but we ask that within the framework of your authority, which you undoubtedly derive from the fact that you were elected by the Parliament of Montenegro with a convincing majority, that you protect the public interest, but and from the legal authority take into consideration the mentioned objections and supervise the entire procedure of concluding the agreement".
Faust admitted that he caused damage of three million euros
In an earlier letter to the Prosecutor's Council, the Secretariat reminded that Čađenović was the acting prosecutor in the case of the plea agreement, which Gunter Faust (executive director of the company "Otpadne vode") concluded with SDT, in connection with the construction of a waste water plant in the Vještice settlement in Bečići, and that he acknowledged the damage of three million euros.
"That legal work, although proven to be highly corrupt, was never annulled. That is why now the Municipality is conducting one of the most difficult arbitration proceedings in this region. I don't want to blame anyone in particular, but the fact is that very strange things happened in the SDT and the High Court in connection with the institution of plea agreements, and that apparently the convicted fared much better there than the injured, which is by no means the purpose of this criminal -law institute".
Čađenović was arrested in December 2022 on suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of creating a criminal organization and several criminal offenses of abuse of office. The Special Prosecutor's Office suspects him of subordinating his official activities to the interests of the Kavaka criminal clan.
Marović's debt is being paid from his pension
Svetozar Marović entered into a plea agreement at the time when SDT was headed by Katnić, and committed himself, later and by a court verdict, to compensate 1.096.481 euros in the name of property benefits acquired by his organized criminal group.
At the beginning of April 2022, the Municipality of Budva took over the Marović estate at half the estimated price, because there were no interested parties at the hearing. The municipality then offered a total of 65.322 euros for three plots of land in Jaz and Krimovica, which were at the repeated second hearing.
The process of selling Marović's property started back in November 2019, since then it has been practically constantly postponed, and it has been almost six and a half years since Marović had to settle the amount of millions. Namely, October 10, 2017 was the deadline, by which, during the pronouncement of the verdict in the Podgorica High Court, and after reaching an agreement with SDT, Marović undertook to compensate 1,09 million euros.
By selling the property, the municipality collected about 80 thousand euros, and previously, on the same principle, it took over a hectare of land in Mrčevo polje for 225.000 euros from Marović's son at half the price. Milos, who guaranteed with that plot that his father would pay off the debt.
The municipality intends to compensate the remaining 793 thousand euros, which is left to be paid to the local administration by the plea agreement and court verdict by the elder Marović, by selling his own brother's property Dragan Marović, who sell disputes. Namely, at the request of the Municipality of Budva, the public executor issued a decision on execution, which provides for the sale of the property pledged by Dragan Marović in the name of his brother's debt.
The municipality collects Svetozar Marović's debt by "deducting" 240 euros from his pension every month.
Marović was arrested in December 2015, and the following May he was released from Spuša prison after pleading guilty and concluding an agreement verified by the High Court. Then he reached Belgrade, since when "every trace" of him is lost, because the Serbian state institutions allegedly cannot find the former high-ranking official of the DPS, for whom Montenegro issued a warrant.
The government has repeatedly asked Serbia to extradite Marović.
The main sentence by which the elder Marović was sentenced to a single prison term of three years and nine months expires absolutely on October 10, 2026...
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