Today, the Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector (MANS) filed a criminal complaint against the head of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) Sreten Radonjić due to the suspicion of abuse of the official position because he refused to initiate proceedings to determine whether Montenegro’s President Milo Đukanović had violated the Law on Prevention of Corruption by not reporting a gift from Atlas Bank in the amount of €16,741.24.
The complaint is submitted to the Special Prosecutor for Suppressing Organized Crime, Corruption, Terrorism and War Crimes.
In the reasoning of the complaint, it is stated that Radonjić, by abusing his official authorities and non-performing of the official duty, without explanation and without the implementation of the legally prescribed procedure, rejected the request by NGO MANS to initiate proceedings for establishing a violation of the provisions of the Law on Prevention of Corruption as unfounded, related to income and property reports and the illegal accepting and non-reporting of the gift by the public official Milo Đukanović.
Today, MANS also filed a complaint against APC requesting that the APC’s decision rejecting the MANS request be annulled because of “substantive violations of the rules of procedure, erroneous and incompletely established factual situation and misapplication of substantive law”.
In MANS’ request to initiate proceedings against Đukanović, it was pointed out that in his income and property report, in the part of “income, premiums and profits earned on the basis of other work, activities, annuities or other sources”, Đukanović did not mention the income generated based on the gift from Atlas Bank.
MANS reminds that, according to the newspaper article “Knežević through Atlas Bank covered Milo’s personal bills as well”, published in “Vijesti” on January 22, 2019, Đukanović had a VIP revolving card of Atlas Bank, number 505000000000432691, which he used to pay personal expenses. With this card, Đukanović was taking and using money without restriction and without the corresponding guarantees.
The article provides and shows written evidence confirming that the debt Đukanović made using this card was paid from the assets of Atlas Bank, i.e. it was settled through a contract on transferring the founding share in the company Rekreaturs Budva to Atlas Bank. The share in Rekreaturs was given to Atlas Bank by the companies Atlas Invest from Podgorica and VB Holding from Cyprus.
Also, there is a suspicion that this is a gift that Đukanović, pursuant to the Article 16 paragraph 1 of the Law on Prevention of Corruption, was not allowed to receive as a public official and, pursuant to Article 17 of the same law, he was obliged to refuse it, compile the report and submit it to the authority in which he exercises his function, and return the gift or transfer it to the state property, which he did not do.
This gift was not recorded and submitted to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption in terms of obligation prescribed by the Article 19 of the same law.
“The Agency did not initiate proceedings upon request, did not request a written statement from the public official Milo Đukanović on the allegations contained in the request, did not establish any facts and circumstances in this case, did not examine any evidence or conducted an oral hearing, and Radonjić did not, following the lawfully implemented procedure, decide whether Milo Đukanović had violated the provisions of the Law on Prevention of Corruption”, it is stated in the criminal report.
From the allegations of the complaint and the evidence submitted and proposed by the complaint, it is determined that Radulović, by abusing his official position, i.e. non-performing of official duty and rejecting the request without implementation of the legally prescribed procedure and with complete ignoring of all allegations from the request, has obtained benefit in favour of Milo Đukanović in the form of avoiding responsibility for violation of the Law on Prevention of Corruption.
MANS
