Government MPs are dissatisfied with the work of the State Prosecutor's Office, especially when it comes to the Telekom affair, which is why most of them in parliament will probably not support the prosecutor's organization's report for last year, "Vijesti" has learned.
"Vijesti" sources from the majority said that the Report on the Work of the Prosecutorial Council and the State Prosecutor's Office for 2024 will probably not be supported by the ruling Europe Now Movement (PES) and New Serbian Democracy (NSD), while the Democratic People's Party (DNP) and the Bosniak Party (BS) have not yet made a decision on this. The Albanian Forum unofficially said that there is a high chance that they will not vote for the prosecutor's report. The Democrats, according to unofficial information, will support the report.
A source for "Vijesti" from the Prosecutor's Office states that some government deputies are likely to find the conduct in cases against them questionable. Danilo Mandic (nephew of the Speaker of the Parliament Andrije Mandić), the President of the Municipality of Nikšić and an official of the NSD Marko Kovačević, then in the cases of Gornje Zaostro and “Coup d'état”.
"Some politicians obviously want to control the prosecution, and they are being dishonest when they say that the rule of law is important to them," said the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
The Podgorica Prosecutor's Office charges Danilo Mandić, the nephew and informal bodyguard of the Speaker of the Parliament and leader of the NSD, with stealing an official parliamentary vehicle on the night of April 19, when he allegedly wounded two people in the center of Podgorica. A judge at the Podgorica High Court ordered Danilo Mandić to be detained for thirty days on April 21, which was then extended for two months on May 22. The last decision to extend the detention was made on August 25.
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Kovačević will appear before the Nikšić Court for Minor Offences on November 7th following a report by the Higher Prosecutor's Office that he incited hatred on ethnic grounds during a speech in Grahovo in June last year. On May 12th, the Higher Prosecutor's Office dismissed the criminal charges against Kovačević for the criminal offence of inciting national, racial and religious hatred, assessing that his actions constituted elements of a minor offence.
On August 8, a monument to a Chetnik commander and war criminal was erected and then removed in Gornji Zaostr. Pavlo ĐurišićThe monument was then moved to the dormitory of the Đurđevi stupovi Monastery. The prosecution several times asked the court to order the temporary seizure of the monument, and the judge Dubravka Popović rejected these requests.
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The “coup d’état” case concerns an alleged attempt to violently seize power in Montenegro on the day of the parliamentary elections, 16 October 2016, in which Serbian citizens and two Russian agents were accused, along with members of the then Democratic Front (DF). In the first-instance verdict, the leaders of the then DF, Andrija Mandić and Milan Knezevic (DNP) were sentenced to five years in prison each. The Court of Appeal overturned that verdict in February 2021 and remanded the case for a retrial, which later ended with an acquittal in July 2023, acquitting Mandić, Knežević and the other defendants of all charges.
The SDT filed an appeal against the acquittal in June of this year.
Mandić: We expect dedicated work
Yes, the report, authored by the Supreme State Prosecutor Milorad Marković, will not receive majority support, the Speaker of the Parliament and leader of the NSD announced on Thursday evening Andrija Mandic.
"I am not sure that the prosecution's report will receive support in parliament now that it is being voted on, and that will be a very important message," Mandić said on the Argumenti show on TVCG.
He said he was concerned that there was a lot of evidence against the (DPS) regime before 2020, "and the prosecution did nothing."
"We have encouraged and supported, and we see - there is one subject, another subject, somewhere people are going on the margins. We expect dedicated work," said Mandić.
He said that during the DPS government, a "fake coup d'état" was staged, and it so happened that the prosecutors "who did it were connected to the most dangerous drug-criminal gangs in Europe, which are the Kavački and Škaljar clans."
"And they are all in prison. Not for the fake coup they staged, but for very serious crimes... Among them are police officials, all of them millionaires or billionaires. DPS, especially their boss, the real boss, not the official one, should sooner or later face the law and the consequences of a terrible and evil government that abused and controlled every aspect of life," said Mandić.
A simple majority is required to adopt the report, i.e. more than half of the MPs present at the session must press the "yes" button, provided that there is a quorum (at least half of the total number of MPs are present, which is 41 out of 81).
"Vijesti" asked Mandić yesterday whether he and his party would vote for the report and if not, why not.
Official questions from "Vijesti" about whether they would support the prosecutor's report were not answered by the NSD, DNP, PES, BS, or the Socialist People's Party (SNP).
"Vijesti" sources from the GP URA said that the party has not yet made a decision on how it will vote, but they are concerned that the reports of all prosecutors' offices have been combined, so they would support, for example, the report of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT), but they are not sure about the Supreme Prosecutor's Office (VDT).
DPS did not respond to "Vijesti" whether they would support the report.
If the report does not receive the required majority in the Parliament, it will not be the first time. This happened in November 2022, when the Parliament did not accept the Report on the Work of the Prosecutorial Council and the State Prosecutor's Office for 2021, as well as the Report on the Work of the Judicial Council and the Overall Situation in the Judiciary for 2021. The report referred to the period when the Acting Chief Prosecutor of the State Prosecutor's Office was Drazen Burić.
No one bears any consequences for not adopting the report.
Dissatisfaction over the Telekom affair
A source for "Vijesti" said that many in the parliamentary majority are dissatisfied with the prosecution's actions in the Telekom affair.
After more than six years in SDT, the criminal complaint filed by the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) in the Telekom case against the former head of state has been dismissed. Milo Đukanović, his sisters Ana Đukanović and several other individuals suspected by the non-governmental organization of abuse of official position, accepting bribes, and creating a criminal organization.
MANS then submitted an objection to the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office, but that institution also assessed that the SDT had made a correct and lawful decision. Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović submitted a proposal to the Prosecutorial Council at the end of September to establish disciplinary liability against the suspended special prosecutor Saša Čađenović, because he did not act within the legal deadlines in the Telekom case.
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The MANS report states that Đukanović and others are charged with "organizing a criminal group, using the economic and business structures of Montenegro, and influencing the executive branch to ensure that the Government enabled Hungarian Telekom to purchase minority shareholders' shares on more favorable terms and thus acquire two-thirds of Telekom's shares, which was a condition for purchasing the state's share package in the company."
At the beginning of October, at the proposal of the National Anti-Corruption Council, the government decided that the state, as the injured party, should undertake the prosecution of the perpetrators of criminal offenses in the case of the privatization of Telekom Montenegro, as a subsidiary prosecutor, based on Article 59 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
That article (paragraph 4) states that "if the state prosecutor has withdrawn the indictment, the injured party may, by taking over the prosecution, remain with the indictment or file a new one."
According to the same law, (Article 294), the court will decide that there is no basis for charges and that criminal proceedings are discontinued, if it establishes, among other things, that “criminal prosecution is time-barred”.
Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the National Anti-Corruption Council Momo Koprivica, previously told "Vijesti" that there are sufficient reasons for the prosecution not to be time-barred.
He said that the prosecution, "explicitly and completely correctly," stated that in the event of a different opinion from the state, as the injured party, it has an option from the Criminal Procedure Code (Article 59) at its disposal, which it is using.
He said that the legislator does not prescribe in any article of the law that the statute of limitations is interrupted solely by taking procedural actions in the investigation, which, according to him, means that some actions taken before 2014, "no matter how sincerely they were taken," can be considered to interrupt the statute of limitations.
He stated that another important aspect of the story is that the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution begins to run from the commission of the criminal offense, but that, if the consequence occurred later, the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution begins to run from the day it occurred.
"In this harmful business, the consequences continue to this day - a valuable resource, in violation of rights, ended up in the hands of a legal entity, in whose hands it remains today, depriving the state and its citizens, in an improper manner. The protector has dealt with this in a quality manner in the complaint, and I believe he is completely right," explained Koprivica.
Special prosecutor Vukas Radonjic said in early October on the show "Načisto" on Television Vijesti that the statute of limitations on criminal proceedings prevents any prosecutor from pursuing criminal prosecution. He explained that the statute of limitations in the Telekom case for the crime of bribery began in May 2011, for the crime of abuse of official position and abuse of official position by aiding and abetting in March 2015, and for the crime of money laundering in May 2016, while MANS filed a criminal complaint on March 1, 2019.
Radonjić added that the only criminal offense that was not statute-barred at the time the report was filed was accepting a bribe and accepting a bribe through aiding and abetting.
"However, the statute of limitations for this crime expired in May 2021, and therefore there is no longer any possibility of criminal prosecution," he noted.
Prosecutor's Office: The number of cases is growing, but so is the efficiency of prosecutors
The State Prosecutor's Office Report for 2024, which has been in parliamentary procedure since the end of March, states that the number of cases has increased significantly, more intensive work is being done on cases of organized crime and corruption, and a record seizure of property and funds has been recorded.
In the reporting period, 22.225 new cases were created, and with 13.092 cases from previous years, a total of 35.317 cases were in progress. This is more than in 2023 (32.854) and the previous two years, which shows a growing trend in workload and at the same time increased efficiency of the system.
According to the report, 21.315 cases were resolved, while the success rate of resolving the influx of cases reached 95,9 percent, which, according to the State Prosecutor's Office, is one of the best results in the last decade.
In terms of the balance of achieved results, the percentage of confirmed indictments in the judicial review procedure is, as stated, 95,97% from the jurisdiction of basic and higher prosecutor's offices.
In 2024, reports were filed against 1.032 persons for corruption crimes, which is a decrease of 4,88% compared to 2023, and an increase of 6,94% compared to 2022.
"Compared to 2021, this is an increase of 41,95%, compared to 2020 of 88,32%, and compared to 2019 of 124,84%. Of the total number of reports in progress, 74,72% have been resolved. The Special State Prosecutor's Office filed five indictments against 12 persons and three indictments against four persons for high-level corruption crimes," the report says.
Marković and Novović will not attend the control hearing
A source for "Vijesti" from the prosecution said that neither Supreme State Prosecutor Milorad Marković nor Special State Prosecutor Vladimir Novović will attend the control hearing regarding the Telekom case, which is scheduled for next week, because they believe it is not in accordance with the law.
A control hearing on the topic: "Prosecution activities that led to the dismissal of criminal charges for abuse of office, accepting bribes and creating a criminal organization during the sale of the former state-owned company Telekom" is scheduled for October 20 at the session of the Committee on Political System and Judiciary.
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