The arrest order against the director of the Movement for Changes (PzP) Dejan Vujisic, the party’s technical secretary Zeljko Scepanovic, a businessman from Bosnia-Herzegovina Momir Nikolic and local foreign currency dealer and a driver of PzP Gordan Konatar was issued after Nikolic gave testimony before special prosecutor Lidija Vukcevic a day before. She ordered his arrest as well, Dnevne Novine newspaper writes.
Nikolic, who was previously questioned in Banja Luka, allegedly described in detail the functioning of the criminal group, as well as the way in which it managed to launder money through €2,000 donations and the purchase of 2,000 tablets. The money origin is still being investigated.
In addition to the testimony of the accused, the Special State Prosecutor’s Office (SDT) has incriminating conversations between the arrested, which was obtained through secret surveillance measures, as well as Scepanovic’s confession that he was distributing money to the party’s activists during the election campaign upon Vujisic’s orders.
Also, Gordan Konatar confessed before the prosecutor that he had exchanged $100,000 in euros for PzP on at least three occasions.
The four of them have been remanded in 72 hour custody on suspicion of creating a criminal organisation and money laundering. All but Nikolic reportedly denied the offences they were charged with.
The suspects’ were searched and certain documents and other pieces of evidence were seized and sent for expert analysis. The money which was allegedly illegally obtained will also be analysed.
Vujisic, Scepanovic and Konatar got into the limelight ahead of the parliamentary elections last year when the police found $30,000 and €17,700 in the car driven by Scepanovic.
Scepanovic then said that he had received the money from Dejan Vujisic in order to exchange dollars for euros and to pay observers engaged by PzP for monitoring the parliamentary elections on 16 October last year.
Scepanovic’s companion Konatar also confirmed that he was supposed to exchange $30,000 for euros at Scepanovic’s request.
As the media reported then, Vujisic denied that the money was intended for observers and that he had anything to do with PzP. He reportedly explained that the money represented his personal funds and that he had asked Scepanovic to convert dollars to euros in order for him to pay back the debt to Tivat resident Miomir Nikolic, who had allegedly lent the money to him for building a house in Donja Gorica in Podgorica.
Before the arrests, SDT was questioning the Democratic Front (DF) activists who donated money to their parties on the eve of the last parliamentary elections. Thus obtained money was allegedly spent for buying 2,000 tablets, worth almost €200,000. The investigators suspect money laundering, since most of the donors (mostly unemployed people or those with modest incomes) have no evidence of the money origin.
