(VIDEO) DISPUTED PURCHASE OF LAND FOR CONSTRUCTION OF HIGHWAY: Veselin Veljovic earned 108,000 euros through fictitious business

The current defense and security advisor to the president of the state and former Director of the Police Administration, Veselin Veljovic, secretly sold a plot of 2,204 square meters in Doljani to the Capital town, headed by Mayor Miomir Mugosa, for about 108,000 euros at the end of 2010. As a reason for buying the plot, the representatives of the Capital City (town) stated that Veljovic’s “land is within the scope of the planned roads, the Eastern bypass around Podgorica and the Bar – Boljare highway”.

However, a decade later, the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network – LUPA (LOUPE) determined through its own investigation that the plot has never been used for the needs of the construction of the Eastern Bypass around Podgorica and the Bar – Boljare highway. The price of 49 euros per square meter, as much as the Capital valued Veljović’s land, in 2010 was not a realistic market price, i.e. the value was overestimated. In that part of the town, a square meter of land was valued at 30 euros, according to data obtained from the Revenue and Customs Administration of Montenegro (formerly the Tax Administration), which means that Veljovic could get a maximum of about 66,000 euros for his land. To date, the capital Podgorica has not bought a single plot around the plot of the advisor to the president, which is another proof that the construction of the road, apparently, was a fictitious reason for buying the land. Doing this happened after the case of the attack on the editor and photo reporter of “Vijesti”, Mihailo Jovovic and Boris Pejovic in August 2009, in which the then-mayor Miomir Mugosa and his son Miljan Mugosa participated.

It is an incident that took place in front of the Podgorica café “Art”, in which Jovović’s eardrum ruptured from a direct blow given to him by Miljan Mugosa, who was employed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time. In that case, the police acted extremely unprofessionally, which was confirmed by the Council for Civilian Control of Police Operations. A gun in Mugosa’s possession was hidden, and shortly after the incident, Jovović was accused of him being the attacker and of injuring the mayor’s driver, Dragan Radonjic, who came for a medical examination 13 hours after the incident. In October 2009, Veselin Veljovic was questioned before members of the Parliamentary Security Committee. On the occasion of police actions during the attack of the mayor of Podgorica and his son on the official and photo reporter of “Vijesti”, he made accusations against the opposition members of the board and new accusations against the beaten journalist. According to earlier allegations by Radio Free Europe (RFE), Veljović tried to justify police officers who did not find the gun used for threatening the journalists.

Among other things, he accused Mihailo Jovovic of offering passive resistance to police officers on the spot and, as he said, of illegal recording them with a dictaphone. Jovović recorded the conversation with the police with dictaphone who did not want to search Mugoša’s vehicle and find the gun used to threaten them. Justifying the police officers who did not find the gun, Veljović said that the police officers received information about the gun only when Miljan Mugoša left the scene.

“I think that the board initiative regarding the police actions was unnecessary, insincere and politicized”, Veljović concluded in October 2009. However, Veljovic’s allegations were not confirmed by the Council for Civilian Control of Police Operations, which determined that the police officers made several mistakes during the investigation of the incident, including mistakes in relation to the treatment of suspects. A criminal charge was also filed accusing the police officers of falsifying the record on the detention of the mayor’s son Miljan, who, as it is suspected, was never taken to the detention room. Three years after the incident, on 19 July 2012, the Basic Court in Podgorica sentenced Miljan Mugoša, the son of the mayor of Podgorica, to six months probation for causing grievous bodily harm to the editor of the daily Vijesti, Mihailo Jovović. Jovovic was acquitted of charges of inflicting light bodily injury. The High Court subsequently upheld this judgment.

The then-mayor Miomir Mugosa was fined 400 euros in a special procedure before the misdemeanor body for disturbing public order and peace. A year after the interrogation of Veselin Veljović in the Parliament of Montenegro, his lucrative deal with the Capital City was realized, headed by Mugosa himself. According to the documentation obtained by LUPA, the Property Directorate – Capital of Podgorica concluded an agreement with Veljović on 11 November 2010, who then sold them 2,204 m² of land in the cadastral municipality Doljani for exactly 107,996 euros, or 49 euros per square meter. The agreement was signed on behalf of the Property Directorate by the then-acting director of that local institution, Nada Stanisic. The fact that the Secretary of the Secretariat for Finance of the Capital City of Podgorica, Miomir Jaksic, five days later, on 16 November 2010, informed the Property Directorate that the entire amount of money specified in the agreement was paid to Veljović from the bank account of the Treasury of the Capital.

The Real Estate Administration of Montenegro notes that it was only on 10 July 2015 i.e. almost five years later, that the purchased property was transferred from Veljović to the Capital City. Therefore, the transfer of property was made only after Slavoljub Stijepovic became the new mayor of Podgorica in October 2014 instead of Miomir Mugoša. This was done with a delay of several years, although there was a letter from the Property Directorate dated 23 November 2010, requesting that local institution to make a transcript, i.e. change the registration of the property. Pursuant to Article 13 of the Law on Expropriation, which was in force in 2010, it was specified as follows: “The expropriation procedure of the immovable property that the public interest is determined for shall be implemented by an administration body competent for registration of rights on immovable”.  Article 14 of the same law specifies: “If the public interest for expropriation of immovable property is not determined by a separate law, the public interest can be determined also by the Government of the Republic of Montenegro (hereinafter: the Government), on the basis of a special study, in accordance with the law. The proposal for determining the public interest for expropriation shall be submitted by the person who, in accordance with provisions of this Law, may be the expropriation user. The proposal for determining the public interest shall be submitted to the Government through the administration body competent for registration of rights on immovables (hereinafter: competent administration body), and it shall contain the data on immovables that the determination of public interest is proposed for, the purpose of expropriation and other data important for determining public interest. The Government shall be obliged to make a decision on the proposal for determining public interest within 60 days…” Considering that in November 2010 there was no special law that treated the highway, but the Law on the Bar – Boljare Highway was passed only on 8 December 2014 and it was published in the Official Gazette of Montenegro on 16 December of the same year, the Government of Montenegro, then headed by Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, had to determine the public interest in the expropriation of Veljović’s real estate by law. In the answer that the journalist team received from the current Government, Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic, they do not have a document in the records which established the public interest in the expropriation of the plot of the former director of the Police Administration.

– Mentioned plots were not treated as per expropriation procedures for the needs of the construction of the highway (nor the connecting roads; the first phase of the Smokovac loop, near the roundabout is on Zlatica). Therefore, they are not included in the project documentation concerning expropriation. They are about 60 m away from the expropriation line according to the GL project – as announced by the Ministry of Capital Investments, headed by Minister Mladen Bojanic. The ministry unofficially confirmed that it will submit planning documentation and other data in their possession related to the highway, if requested by the prosecuting authorities, all with the aim of determining possible criminal responsibility in this case. The journalists sent questions to Veselin Veljovic via e-mail regarding the disputed purchase of land, but the answer was not received prior to the publication of the research.

A loophole in the Law on Prevention of Corruption

Veselin Veljović duly reported to the former Commission for Prevention of Conflicts of Interest in his asset declaration form 2011 the income from the sale of land in Doljani amounting 107,996 euros. However, the former Commission and today’s Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) have never stated in the official data on their website, when it comes to Veljović’s asset declaration, that this is land that was sold to the Capital City Podgorica. In that sense, there is a loophole in the Law on Prevention of Corruption, which according to the Action for Social Labor (ASP) should be amended.

“This case shows that the Law on Prevention of Corruption should be amended in terms of clearly specifying the obligation of APC that the asset declaration forms of officials, which are published on their website, should have visible information to whom the public official sells the movable and immovable property, provided that the buyer is a state and/or state or local institution or state or local enterprise. Thereby the said deals would be more transparent and it would be easier to follow the trace of money from the state i.e. local treasuries and the budget”, the ASP announced.

Authors: Vladimir Otasevic i Drasko Milacic