Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office expanded the list of suspects in the investigation of the affair "General Staff", so the acting secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Slavica Jelača, was on it.
The Prosecutor's Office suspects the prolonged criminal offense of abuse of official position in co-perpetration, Insider writes.
Jelača is acting secretary Ministry of Culture was appointed last year, and for the first time in the investigation related to the "General Staff" affair, she was heard as a witness at the beginning of September.
She was questioned again this week, but this time, as a suspect. The hearing lasted two days, and Jelača, who was heard without a lawyer in September, this time appeared at the Prosecutor's Office with her defense attorney - a lawyer. Vladimir Djukanovic.
At the hearing, Jelača confirmed that, together with the former suspects in that investigation, the directors of the Republic and Belgrade Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, she undertook the actions of unauthorized preparation of documentation, based on which on November 14 last year the Government of Serbia made a decision on the termination of the status of cultural property of the buildings of the General Staff of the Serbian Army and the Ministry of Defense in Belgrade.
Former suspects Vasić and Ivanović
Before Jelača, and the suspected directors of the Institute, the republican – Goran Vasic and Belgrade - Aleksandar Ivanović also admitted the actions they are accused of, which is the falsification of documents on the basis of which they submitted to the Ministry of Culture the Initiative for making a decision on the termination of the status of cultural property in the case of the General Staff buildings of the Serbian Army.
Vasić untruthfully presented that the Initiative for the General Staff was filed in the Institute's electronic office, while on the other hand, he submitted the Initiative without the mandatory conservator's report.
As has been determined in the investigation so far, there was no legally required - publicly announced proposal of the Initiative.
Despite the obvious shortcomings, the Ministry of Culture then sends the documentation of the Republic Institute in the form of a proposal Vladi, which will make a decision in November 2024.
Behind everything was the government's agreement to sell the two buildings of the General Staff in the center of Belgrade to the company of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the American president. Donald Trump, who planned the construction of a hotel and a business-residential complex with two towers on plots of land in Kneza Miloša Street in the center of Belgrade.
Immediately after the arrest of Vasić, Kushner's company "Affinity Partners" announced that the fate of the entire project is now "less clear".
The president reacted to this. Aleksandar Vučić saying that there is no problem in realizing the plans for Kushner's company to build a hotel in Belgrade.
For Vučić, everything is "made up"
From the beginning of the investigation, Vučić claims that there was no forgery and that the whole "General Staff" case was invented.
"There was no falsification. They invented the 'general staff' case to cover up the canopy," Vučić repeated several times since the initiation of the investigation.
In the meantime, the first suspect in this investigation - Goran Vasić was reinstated as director of the Republic's Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.
The Government's decision on the termination of the status of cultural property of the General Staff buildings was published in the Official Gazette eight days after its adoption, but was not implemented. Due to the illegal decision, the Institute's experts did not delete the note on protection, so the buildings of the General Staff are still in the Register of Immovable Cultural Properties.
Almost no one mentions Selaković and Malog
In early October, MP Vladimir Jelić asked the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime to file indictments and issue an arrest warrant for the Minister of Finance. Siniše Malog and the Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković because of the "General Staff" affair.
Jelić then stated that the published documents show that this affair is more serious than initially thought.
According to him, by forming a joint venture, the highest government officials had a personal financial benefit in donating the demolished General Staff building - a symbol of resistance to NATO aggression and a protected cultural asset - to the son-in-law of the President of the United States of America, in order to build a hotel and casino on that site.
"Every new day reveals some new affair of the current government, and the closest associates of Aleksandar Vučić are always at the top of corruption scandals, especially those who were in power before him, such as Sinisa Malog and Goran Vesić, whom their current boss once called 'yellow scum,'" Jelić said at the time.
He called on the competent institutions to act according to the law and show that the judiciary in Serbia can be independent and resistant to political pressure.
Source: Insider
