Former Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesić he did not want to answer the journalist's question about whether he presented his defense at the hearing, which was held on Monday, November 17, in Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime.
On Monday, Vesić testified for the first time before the prosecutor in the financial investigation in the reconstruction case canopies at the Railway Station in Novi Sad, writes N1.
Apart from Vesić, the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime also launched an investigation against his predecessor in the position of Minister of Construction Tomislav Momirović. Among those who are under investigation are the former assistant to the Minister of Construction Anita Dimoski, the acting general director of "Serbian Railway Infrastructure" Nebojša Šurlan and the investment development manager of that company Slobodanka Katanić. They are suspected of having damaged the budget by 115 million dollars during the reconstruction of the Novi Sad-Kelebija railway, which included the renovation of the station building in Novi Sad.
Deal with the Chinese
The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime alleges that Vesić, Momirović and their colleagues, by concluding the annex to the Commercial Contract within the Hungarian-Serbian railway modernization project, enabled the contractor, Chinese the CRIC&CCCC consortium, the Ministry of Construction and the Serbian Railway Infrastructure Company to charge more than one billion US dollars for works and to perform additional works that were paid for more than US$64 million. Thus, the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime stated, they obtained a material benefit for the contractor, and damaged the Serbian budget by more than 115 million dollars.
Retired judge of the Appellate Court in Novi Sad Savo Đurđić indicated that "it appears that this is only part of the total damage".
"The available parts of this order (the arrest warrant of the Prosecutor's Office, ed.) regarding the sentence are quite clear and specific, and as far as the details of the reason and documentation are concerned, for now, understandably due to the nature of the investigation, which is not public, they are not available or more widely explained. They refer to the criminal reports of the Ministry of Interior of the RS SBPOK and Ministry of Finance, Tax Administration - tax police sector, Novi Sad department and on the evidence they submitted, so we expect a full explanation only when the indictment in this case is filed," Đurđić told Deutsche Welle.
Detention replaced by house arrest
In the large-scale arrest operation ordered by the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime on August 1 of this year, Vesić was not arrested, because the day before the arrest he was admitted to the hospital due to poor health.
Although he was immediately ordered into custody, which was later replaced by a milder measure house arrest with the mandatory wearing of electronic monitoring, Vesić was under hospital treatment all the time until almost mid-October.
Due to his state of health, the investigation stopped, and since he was not heard, the Prosecution could not hear witnesses either, but ordered an expert examination of his state of health.
When the expert report arrived, the Prosecutor's Office scheduled a hearing for November 17.
"The findings and opinion of the experts stated that the current state of health of the suspect Goran Vesić is a temporary circumstance, due to which he cannot participate in the proceedings until the end of the first week of November 2025 at the latest," the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime announced at the time.
Vesic's promise
In the first procedure that was initiated in the case of "canopies". Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad, Vesić was charged for opening the station building even though the work was not completed, and there was no use permit.
Only a few hours after the fall of the canopy, Vesić declared that it would be determined who was responsible for the accident.
"In the coming days, the responsibility of each person responsible for jeopardizing the safety of passengers at the station will be determined," Vesić said at the time.
