(Podgorica, 25 January 2012) – Montenegrin officials are attempting to cover up the Montenegrin Telecom corruption affair and conceal all traces of evidence that lead to the state leadership.
Prime Minister Lukšić has demonstrated that he is able to influence the work of the Supreme State Prosecutor when it is in his interest – for example in the “Listing Affair” – but when the issue does not concern him or his mentor, then he remembers the independence of the judiciary.
Lukšić yesterday told Ranka Čarapić that she should not look into the entirety of the Telecom privatization agreement, since this is the jurisdiction of the Hungarian judiciary.
If the Prime Minister thinks that Čarapić doesn’t know that her job is to verify all documentation related to the privatization of Montenegrin Telecom, then he should raise the question of her work.
In so far as he, along with his party, support Ranka Čarapić, then they should formally allow her to do her job and establish whether or not there was high-level corruption and determine who took €4.47-million.
Similarly, the last appearances of Vesna Medenica and Zoran Đikanović are also meant to blur traces that would lead to those responsible for accepting millions of euros in bribes. They have also attempted to minimize their own responsibility in this affair.
Thus, the President of the Securities Commission claims that the information they have available was submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office, while Medenica explains that this was not during her mandate but when Ranka Čarapić inherited the position.
The current prosecutor, however, had already stated in the past that she had previously terminated this investigation and that she had found nothing suspicious.
Vesna Medenica mentioned the expert testimony of professors from the Economics Faculty, which she claims established that the consulting agreements with Sigma and Rawleigh Trading were clean “from the point of view of closing procedures, contracting and set payment rates.”
The contents, and the dates of the contracts, under which the sister of a high-rnaking government official accepted bribes aren’t mentioned by Medenica, even though the American investigation found that these were problematic.
