The Special State Prosecutor\u2019s Office of Montenegro has brought charges against nine former ministers and three other individuals on suspicion of abusing their official positions during the allocation of housing and housing loans.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Vukas Radonji\u0107 announced on 4 July that the defendants are suspected of causing damage of over 2.6 million euros to the state budget.<\/p>\n
Among the accused are five deputies \u2013 Predrag Bo\u0161kovi\u0107, Dragica Sekuli\u0107, and Suzana Pribilovi\u0107 from the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), and Ivan Brajovi\u0107 and Damir \u0160ehovi\u0107 from the Social Democrats.<\/p>\n
Former ministers Budimir \u0160egrt, Suad Numanovi\u0107, and Sanja Vlahovi\u0107 from the DPS, and Osman Nurkovi\u0107 from the Bosniak Party are also accused of abuse of office.<\/p>\n
Abuse of office is punishable by imprisonment from two to twelve years.<\/p>\n
Outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovi\u0107 filed a criminal complaint against them in mid-October 2022, claiming that the state had been damaged for around two million euros.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the indictment, Abazovi\u0107 expressed hope that the state would seek compensation \u201cif we have a final judicial outcome\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI regret that 500 apartments were given to people who politically damaged Montenegro with billions of euros,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The accused ministers were members of the Government Commission for Housing Affairs, which, in addition to government members, allocated housing and loans to representatives of other authorities, such as deputies, judges, and prosecutors.<\/p>\n
The State Prosecutor\u2019s Office accuses them of granting loans for housing improvement above the stipulated amount of up to 15,000 euros without assessment from the commission of experts of the former Property Administration.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor\u2019s office also emphasizes that individual loans amounting to 40,000 euros were granted to officials who requested 30,000 euros in their housing needs applications.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, exceeding the requested amounts is in violation of the Law on Administrative Procedure and the judicial practice of the Administrative Court of Montenegro,\u201d Prosecutor Radonji\u0107 said in the media statement.<\/p>\n
This applies, for example, to the case when former President of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica requested 30,000 euros in assistance, while the Commission decided to grant her 10,000 euros more.<\/p>\n
The Prosecutor\u2019s Office also noted that the Government of Du\u0161ko Markovi\u0107 approved the Commission\u2019s allocation of these loans during 2016-2020.<\/p>\n
Therefore, according to the announcement, it has decided to submit a copy of the criminal complaint to the Basic State Prosecutor\u2019s Office in Podgorica to assess whether there are grounds to suspect that the Prime Minister and government members \u201ccommitted the continuous criminal offense of negligent work in service\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Special State Prosecutor\u2019s Office of Montenegro has brought charges against nine former ministers and three other individuals on suspicion of abusing their official positions during the allocation of housing and housing loans. Prosecutor Vukas Radonji\u0107 announced on 4 July that the defendants are suspected of causing damage of over 2.6 million euros to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":56830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[1040,3209,243,151,2105,460,3272],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n