After the High Court of Montenegro, i.e. the council chaired by Judge Vesna Pean, made a decision today that Miomir Mugoša did not abuse his official position in the sale of city construction land to the company “Carine”, we expect a prompt reaction from the Supreme and Special State Prosecutor’s Office.
Photo: Vijesti
We insist that Maja Jovanović, Acting Supreme State Prosecutor, determine without delay whether there were omissions in the work and investigation of the Special State Prosecutor Sanja Jovićević, and of course, that the Special State Prosecutor’s Office file an appeal against such a verdict.
Let us remind that MANS reported Mugoša back in 2007 for illegal sale of land to “Carine” after the tender procedure was suspended, within which “Carine” offered over 13 million euros for the land in question, and then ceded it to the same company for only 2.5 million euros, just a few months after the tender was suspended due to the withdrawal of “Carine”. That criminal report was rejected in 2008 by Saša Čađenović, then deputy prosecutor in the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica, and now Special State Prosecutor.
MANS then filed two more criminal charges for this case, the first after the Basic Court in Podgorica annulled the decision to cede the land to “Carine” in 2010, on the appeal of other bidders in the tender, and the second in 2012 – after Mugoša signed another decision on the transfer of land to Carine, for an identical, contentious amount of 2.5 million euros, and despite changes in planning documentation that have occurred in the meantime, which further increased the value of the land. The latest report also charged Čedomir Popović, the owner of the company “Carine”, for whom it was never determined whether and in what way he influenced Mugoša, as well as the amount of benefits that Popović and his company gained in this procedure.
However, Mugoša was questioned in the Special State Prosecutor’s Office only in 2017, a full ten years after the case took place, and the High Court could confirm the indictment in the spring of 2018. Later, the indictment was not confirmed for Mugoša’s closest associates at the time. After four years and more delays, Special State Prosecutor Sanja Jovićević still failed to prove in court that Mugoša defrauded the budget of the Capital City Podgorica in the amount of 6.7 million euros, a figure determined by experts during the trial.
Due to all the above, it is necessary to conduct a control of the work of Special State Prosecutor Sanja Jovićević without delay, and determine whether the State Prosecutor’s Office is responsible for this outcome of the indictment, which was allegedly based on a years-long investigation.
All the evidence still available to the public clearly indicates serious suspicions that Mugoša grossly violated the law by insisting on selling the land to “Carine” at a much lower price than the market price, and later even despite the changes in planning documentation that caused additional growth in the value of city plots.
This is a case that is extremely important for the integrity of the new composition of the State Prosecutor’s Office, because it is about possible highest-level corruption. Any “useful error” and/or “ambiguity” in conducting this investigation should be investigated and severely sanctioned.
MANS
