The High Court in Podgorica confirmed the indictment of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) against the former director of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ASK) Jelena Perović and her former assistant Nina Paović for the criminal offenses of abuse of official position and the extended criminal offense of forgery of an official document.
"The indictment was filed because it was established from the evidence collected during the investigation and the investigation that there is a reasonable suspicion that the accused JP, in the period from August 21, 2020 to March 20 of this year, by illegally abusing her official position and exceeding the limits of her official authority, obtained benefit and material gain for herself, and caused damage to the injured party, Montenegro, because, as the Director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, she was elected by a decision of the Council of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, contrary to the Law on Salaries of Public Sector Employees, which stipulates that the decision on salaries for persons elected in accordance with the regulations is adopted by the working body that elected them, for herself and in her own favor, she adopted decisions on the payment of increased salaries based on overtime work and decisions on the variable part of the salary, although the Council of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is authorized to adopt them, and in the decisions on the payment of increased salaries based on overtime work she also entered false data on the number of overtime hours in which she did not work longer than full-time hours or which were not "correspond to her work performed longer than full-time hours, on the basis of which she was paid an increased salary, and thus she obtained material gain for herself, and caused damage to the injured party in the total gross amount of 5.796,53 euros," the SDT statement reads.
The SDT indicated that there is a reasonable suspicion that from November 22, 2021 to March 20 last year, by illegally exploiting her official position, Perović obtained material gain for others and caused damage to the state, because she issued decisions on the payment of increased wages based on overtime work for her assistants, the accused Paović and Boris Vukašinović, in which she entered false data on the number of overtime hours and thus paid Paović 4.704 euros and Vukašinović 5.109 euros.
"It has also been established that there is a reasonable suspicion that the accused JP, in the period from August 20, 2020 to July 19 last year, by exceeding the limits of its official authority, obtained benefit and material gain for others and caused damage to the injured party, Montenegro, because, contrary to the Law on Salaries of Employees in the Public Sector and the Law on the Prevention of Corruption, which stipulate that the decision on the salary for persons elected in accordance with the regulations is issued by the body that elected them, it issued temporary decisions establishing the right to compensation for the president and members of the Council of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption: MR, ZV, RH, GV and G.Č., although the Parliament of Montenegro, which elects the members of the Council of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, is authorized to issue them, and the determined compensations were higher than prescribed by law, so by issuing decisions on determining the right to compensation and its amount, for which it was not authorized, it obtained benefit for them, and by approving payments under those decisions, it also obtained material gain in the gross amount, to the president of the Council in the total amount of EUR 15.943,22, and to members a total of EUR 26.578,48".
The SDT determined that there is suspicion that Paović and Perović abused official position and approved payment from the Agency's account of travel expenses abroad, namely: four times to North Macedonia, twice to Slovenia and Croatia, as well as to Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, Moldova, Kosovo, France and the United States of America, for accommodation and transportation for NL, who is not employed in the public sector, and thus obtained material benefit for him in the total amount of 19.410 euros.
Perović is accused of falsely presenting a private trip with her daughter to Ljubljana as an official one in order to reimburse the costs of the private trip as transportation costs abroad and of personally signing a request sent to the State Treasury of the Ministry of Finance, thereby authorizing the payment of a total of 542,20 euros from the ASK account for the costs of the alleged official trip abroad.
"Furthermore, there is a reasonable suspicion that, in the period from November 24 to December 11 last year, the accused JP and NP, jointly, by unlawfully exploiting their official positions, obtained material gain for the other, and caused damage to the injured party, Montenegro, because the accused J.P., as the director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and the client, concluded a service contract with NL, as the executor, dated November 24, 2023, by which they, as contracting parties, agreed that the executor would perform tasks related to technical assistance in compiling reports on inspections carried out, technical assistance in compiling statistical reports, assistance in sorting and arranging documentation, assistance in recording documentation, assistance in depositing documentation in certain registers, preparation, organization and support in organizing official trips in the country and abroad, in the period from November 27 to December 27, 2023, for compensation in the net amount of €1.000, that would, during the term of that contract, the accused J.P. with NL, on 1 December 2023, conclude another contract for services, which was not registered in the register, for the period from 1 to 10 December 2023, for the same tasks - preparation, organization and support in organizing business trips in the country and abroad, and for compensation in the net amount of €1.909,95, after which the accused N. P., as the Assistant Director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, upon prior agreement with the accused director, entered the number in her own hand on an unregistered contract of employment, in order to falsely present that it had been entered in the register, and then, with her own hand, on payment requests sent to the State Treasury of the Ministry of Finance, approved the payment of the net compensation amount to the contractor from the account of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, under that contract, even though she knew that it was a payment for the same work for which a contract of employment had already been concluded, dated November 24, 2023, so that 1.909,95 euros were paid from the account of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, without a legally valid basis, in which amount the accused obtained material benefit and caused damage to the injured party, while, on December 20, 2023, an amount of 1.000 euros was also paid from the account of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, under the contract of employment, dated November 24. "2023," the SDT statement states, among other things.
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