Counselor at the Embassy of Montenegro in Brussels Predrag Stamatovic has not surrendered to the Special State Prosecutor’s Office (SDT) yet, although he announced he would do that as soon as he finishes his commitments abroad, Dnevne Novine newspaper learns.
Stamatovic is charged with being a member of the organised criminal group, which is suspected of costing state budget nearly 20m in the Primorka affair.
SDT has issued arrest warrant against him and the Slovenian national Crtomir Mesaric, former director of NLB Bank.
Stamatovic evaded arrest on 19 April because he was abroad when the police operation was conducted. On the same day, he informed the competent special prosecutor in a phone conversation that he would return to Montenegro and surrender in a few days.
However, he made the announcement five days ago but has not done that yet.
According to SDT investigation order, Nebojsa Boskovic is charged with creating a criminal plan along with the former director of the NLB bank Crtomir Mesaric to buy the assets of the Primorka bankruptcy company at favourable terms via his companies Krisma Trade, Krisma Motors and Melgonia Primorka.
Having made a deal with Mesaric, Boskovic established a fictitious company Melgonia Holding Limited in Cyprus. That company established a subsidiary company Melgonia in Montenegro, which took over liabilities of Krisma Trade and Krisma Motors that had bought Bar-based company Primorka.
The purchase of Primorka was financed from the loan granted by NLB Bank in 2010 thanks to falsely presented financial situation in Krisma Trade and Krisma Motors and pledge that the loan would be used for the revival of production in Primorka and paying liabilities to the workers.
The loan was paid on the basis of the government’s conclusion on rescheduling the previous debt, although the previous request had not been approved and the assets for rescheduling the debt and not undergone the procedure for granting state aid.
In addition to these guarantees, the entire Primorka’s property, including buildings, equipment and 66,000 square meters of land, which was actually state-owned, were given as collateral for the loan. Since the loan was not repaid properly, the bank activated guarantees and mortgages and thus became the owner of the former Primorka’s property worth €15m, as well as €4m government’s guarantee.
In addition to Boskovic, Svetozar Markovic and former director of NLB Bank Crtomir Mesaric, who is not available to Montenegro’s investigating authorities, the suspects include the secretary general of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro Refik Bojadzic, former member of the Board of Directors of the Electric Power Company of Montenegro (EPCG) Boris Buskovic, director of the Melgonia company Mile Markovic and executive director of Melgonia Primorka Vinko Marovic. Criminal charges were also pressed against employees in the Ministry of Finance Sefika Kurtagic, Mitar Bajceta, Sonja Becovic and employees in the Ministry of Agriculture Darko Konjevic, Irena Mijanović and Vukic Perovic.
Boskovic negotiated yesterday
Just a day after he was arrested, Boskovic offered to make a plea bargain with SDT. Svetozar Markovic also offered a plea bargain. Markovic allegedly made a criminal plan upon Boskovic’s order to take valuable assets from Primorka’s bankruptcy and repay debts of Krisma Motors and Krisma Trade.
The details of Boskovic and Markovic’s negotiations with SDT are still unknown.
According to unofficial information, they admitted all the allegations from the SDT investigation order.
