Start investigating DPS caching

In separate reports, the Democratic Front (DF) and the Democrats asked the Supreme State Prosecutor (VDT) Ivica Stanković to conduct a detailed investigation and file an indictment for the "envelope" affair.

Today, DF will submit a report to the VDT against the owner of the Atlas Group Duško Knežević, the former mayor of Podgorica Slavoljub Stijepović, the president of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Milo Đukanović and the special state prosecutor Milivoj Katnić.

They believe that the crimes committed in the affair are the creation of a criminal organization, money laundering, helping the perpetrator after the crime has been committed, and abuse of official position.

"During the DPS election campaign, for the parliamentary elections in Montenegro in 2016, the then mayor of Podgorica, Slavoljub Stijepović, personally took over funds from Knežević for the purposes of the DPS election campaign, whose president during the critical period was Djukanović, and in such a way that Knežević handed over the disputed funds in two separate cash payment transactions, in the amount of no less than 200.000 dollars, after which Stijepović requested a currency conversion to the euro currency, in order to pay and engage the DPS activists to whom the disputed funds are owed was intended," the application states.

Duško Knežević stated that he sent Stijepović 200 dollars to finance the DPS campaign, but that he asked him to convert them into euros so that he could distribute them to activists. He claims that the money was sent to Stijepović according to an agreement with Đukanović.

A video was published showing Knežević giving Stijepović an envelope in his house and saying that there were 97.500 euros and that 2,5 percent had been taken for change.

Stijepović claims that it is about the conversion of money that the public was previously aware of, while the DPS said that in the "Atlas case" the institutions of the system will perform their work "in an independent, professional and impartial manner".

"In October 2017, driver Vlatko Rašović, an employee of Knežević, gave a statement to members of the Police Administration regarding the fact that 100.000 dollars, which he and five other employees of Atlas Group had converted into euros in October 2016, and that these funds belonged to the defendant Stijepović , who acted in the name and on behalf of DPS", the application states.

In a letter to Stanković, the head of the Democrats' legal team, Neven Gošović, recalled that Knežević publicly announced that he had been giving huge sums of money to DPS for a long period of time.

"Whereas, within the scope of such given funds, there were also funds for which the conversion was carried out in Atlas Bank, and in that procedure no measures were taken by the competent authorities in order to determine whether it was money obtained through criminal activity", stated Gošović and reminded that Knežević stated in the media that he has been a financier of DPS for 25 years.

"It is evident that the DPS did not report the receipt of that money in its financial reports, nor in the contributions given to that party for the election campaign," said Gošović.

Even yesterday, the SDT did not answer the questions of "Vijesti" whether an investigation had been launched due to the video or whether Stijepović had been questioned. Due to allegations of questionable donations, the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) has not announced anything until now.

Knežević's name is not on the list of donors for the parliamentary elections in 2016, although the DPS reported in the financial report that 25 people paid a total of 680.025 euros for the election campaign.

SDT charges Knežević with embezzlement of 1,9 million euros, and unofficially marks him as the head of a criminal group. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and he stated that the hunt for him "is being led by Đukanović with close criminal clans, because they want to steal his valuable property and lucrative business and that they are behind the arrest warrant."

The vice-president of the URA Civic Movement, Suada Zoronić, said that Stijepović should explain to the public the origin of the money he took from Knežević and why he did not request the services of a bank for the conversion.

DF: They are bothered by the recordings, not the corruption

The Democratic Front said that the video of Knežević and Stijepović showed that the DPS staged a coup d'état on the day of the parliamentary elections in 2016 in order to prevent a certain defeat.

"And then, with the help of the prosecutor's office, everything they did, from money laundering to mounting terrorism, was set up by the DF, so that they could play with the moral national stones who can only say: "Never again 1918!" And that means that the DPS sees nothing objectionable in the fact that their mayor and member of the Presidency takes 100.000 euros from the tycoon Knežević for the campaign, but they are bothered by the fact that it is documented in a video", they said from the DF.