Delta Holding he sued the state demanding damages due to the detention of the company's first man Miroslav Miskovic more than 10 years ago. Delta demands the payment of 1,4 billion dinars and 390.000 euros, the "Forbes" portal announced.
As stated in the lawsuit, which was seen by the journalists of this portal, Delta Holding suffered damage due to the detention of Mišković, who at that time was an employee and president of the board of directors of this company.
The owner of Delta was detained on December 12, 2012 together with his son Marko (and the owner of the Nibens Group, Milo Đurašković) due to alleged abuses in the operations of the privatized road companies. His detention was ordered and extended several times. One of the extensions was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in March 2013.
Four months later, on July 19, the High Court allowed the detention to be replaced by the posting of bail so that Mišković could be released. Delta responded promptly and did so three days later.
In order to enable its first man to be released from custody, Delta Holding, following the instructions of the court, posted bail in the amount of 12 million euros, i.e. 1,36 billion dinars.
This was followed by the passing of a verdict by the High Court in June 2016, then by the Court of Appeal in September 2017. With that verdict, Mišković was acquitted of the criminal offense of abuse of the position of a responsible person. Thus, according to Delta, the first-instance judgment of the High Court was annulled in the part declaring him guilty of tax evasion in assisting and returned to the first-instance court for a new decision.
This is followed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal from December 2021, which acquitted Mišković of all charges, which "definitely ended the criminal proceedings against Miroslav Mišković".
Based on all these decisions, Delta Holding believes that there were no grounds for initiating criminal proceedings against the company's CEO. They also claim that he was unjustifiably and illegally deprived of his liberty and that he spent a total of 223 days in custody.
"There's some strange connection"
It is very interesting that the news about this lawsuit came just a few weeks before Zdravko Čolić's ceremonial concert at the opening of the Blue Hall of the Sava Center, which was attended by many ministers of the Government of Serbia.
The news about Vučević's presence was also found on the official website of the Government of Serbia, and as stated, the opening of the "Blue Hall" was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dačić, Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Đedović Handanović, Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovation Jelena Begović, as well as Minister of Information and Telecommunications Dejan Ristić.
Photo: Photo: Filip Krainčanić/Nova.rsZdravko Čolić greets the guests in the first row
This rapprochement between the owners of Delta and the representatives of the Vučić regime came after the well-known businessman was "held on ice" for many years. Let us remind you, the dizzying rise of Aleksandar Vučić is also started thanks to the arrest of this businessman, 12 years ago.
How did it all begin?
How is it "Vreme" already wrote about this case in the article "Miškovic Case", it all started in the late fall of 2012. SNS and SPS have just come to power, and Vučić is in the role of a cold and fair fighter against tycoons. Finally, he came to power on the basis of those promises: the fight against tycoons, the resolution of 24 controversial privatizations, zero tolerance for corruption and everything similar.
Already in October, announcements begin: "Miroslav Mišković is a rich and powerful man, but I am not afraid of him, because he is not stronger than the state and will not defeat it"; "Miroslav Mišković wants to throw me and the Serbian Progressive Party out of power"; "I wasn't afraid of everything he (Mišković) did, and people shouldn't worry." Miroslav Mišković may be stronger than Aleksandar Vučić, but he is not stronger than the state and the state will win." This is only a part of Vučić's statements during the fall of 2012.
Mišković offers a pipe of peace: on November 12, after the then vice-president of Delta, Jelena Krstović, tweeted a picture of her notebook, in which it was written "D. Đilas, 1. Press - business, new company, people, printing house, credit", Mišković announces that he is the largest single owner of "Press" (where Dragan J. Vučićević has been working since the beginning, since 2005), and that he is retiring from these newspaper and stops financial support: it gives its share to journalists for free, with the obligation to settle bank guarantees.
However, an arrest follows exactly one month later. The special prosecutor for organized crime, Miljko Radisavljević, declares that day that "Miroslav Mišković, Milo Đurašković and Marko Mišković are charged with the criminal complaint that they appropriated property worth around two billion and 870 million dinars from privatized road companies".
"I hope that we will be able to prove the basic thesis that the brutal extraction of money and capital is hidden behind the work with road companies - the sucking of assets from companies that were in the process of privatization and the acquisition of unjustified property benefits by persons involved in the privatization process and work in those companies," said the prosecutor at the time.
Photo: Tanjug / Marko DjokovicCeremonial opening of the Sava Center's Blue Hall
"The unthinkable happened"
On the same day, in a special broadcast on B92 regarding the arrest, police director Milorad Veljović explains who is actually responsible for the arrest: "This case is not handled by the police privately, as some would like to say." This is the Government's decision that the Bureau of the National Security Council directly forms teams that will deal with this problem."
Let us remind you that at that moment, as the Minister of Defense, Vučić was a member of the National Security Council, and before that - immediately after coming to power - Tomislav Nikolić appointed him as the secretary of the Council, who heads the Bureau for the Coordination of Security Services, i.e. operationally manages the entire security sector in Serbia.
In the same show, Minister of Justice Nikola Selaković explains that we are witnessing something unimaginable until then: "Something happened that was unimaginable until a few years ago. A man was detained who was so powerful in Serbia that it was pejoratively said that he is the one who appoints governments, who blackmails politicians, who elects them. Now it happened that that man is behind bars."
And in the evening, on the public service, the then Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Serbia appeared, practically passing the verdict: "The prosecutors in this case have a clear situation, because it is about the state's money, which has been siphoned off", said Vučić and reminded that the public prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac and special prosecutor Miljko Radisavljević, personnel of the "former government".
After he "judged" in this case, Vučić also said that he expects some verdicts on the 24 disputed privatization cases in the coming years, and that the indictments and indictments have mostly been completed.
"If we wanted to select cases, we could have chosen from Bus-plus to any of these 24 cases that we have in the EU report, that's what we will do," said Vučić and noted that it is time to cleanse Serbia of corruption.
On the same day, another important element was added to the show: the tabloids reported that Mišković, after being detained, said that "First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić will not be waiting for tonight's guest appearance on RTS."
Delta denied it for nothing. That evening on RTS, the Speaker of the Assembly, Nebojša Stefanović, immediately asked "the competent authorities to ensure safety and security for Aleksandar Vučić and all those who fight against corruption and organized crime", and that "Mišković's threats were not addressed to Vučić as an individual, but to the state". Stefanović said that neither the police nor Vučić told him this: "We didn't talk about it. "All the media reported it, and I believe them," he said.
A few days later, the head of the police working group for investigating controversial privatizations, Bogdan Pušić, said that Mišković told operatives that "Vučić is free to cancel the show (hosting on RTS), because he will not be arrested." The script was set.
Photo: AP Photo/Darko VojinovićPresident of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić
Absolute support
The arrest of Miroslav Mišković was supported by almost everyone: "The European Commission is encouraged by the moves of the Government of Serbia in the fight against corruption and calls on the authorities to resolutely continue in that direction," said the same day the spokesman for the Commissioner for Enlargement Štefan File, adding that "the European Commission is following very carefully Belgrade's moves in this regard and that it is important to have a consistent, comprehensive and non-selective approach in combating corruption".
"The Democratic Party supported tonight the arrest of the owner of Delta, Miroslav Mišković, and other suspects of embezzlement during the privatization of road companies, and called on state authorities to demonstrate in future actions that the fight against corruption is not selective," said Miodrag Rakić from DS.
The then spokeswoman of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, Aleksandra Jerkov, said that she was "surprised that in the fight against corruption, those who are in political conflict with the Serbian Progressive Party are arrested, but also that when it comes to the arrest of Miroslav Mišković, the government has the support of absolutely everyone." DSS also supported the arrest.
The popularity of Vučić and SNS exploded: in the May 2012 elections, SNS won 24 percent of the vote, and 10 days after the arrest of Mišković, "Blic" reported a survey by Strategžik Marketing, which showed that SNS was supported by 41 percent of citizens who would leave to the elections. In the annual report of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, it is written that the survey by CESID and UNDP from January 2013 "showed that the support of citizens to the Government of Serbia in the fight against corruption has increased drastically in the past six months." The number of citizens who think that the government is on the right track has doubled, and almost half of the respondents believe that the level of corruption will be significantly reduced this year."
Vučić "rode" this wave of popularity brought to him by Mišković's arrest and is still riding on it, despite the fact that the fight against corruption has, to put it mildly, died down, and some other tycoons - Bogoljub Karić, for example - are participating in the presidential election campaign on Vučić's side. The report of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia for 2014 states:
"Prime Minister Vučić gained popularity by announcing the fight against corruption, but little has been achieved during the last three years." The campaigns that are being run on that occasion serve to maintain constant tension in society and create the illusion that the government is solving accumulated problems. Miroslav Mišković, the owner of Delta Holding, is a hostage to that policy: although the procedure has been ongoing for more than two years, the process has not yet ended. Given that the case of Mišković, as a symbol of 'unjust enrichment', his arrest and trial received the most public support. However, the process is taking too long, and Vučić does not seem to have an exit strategy that would allow him to end it in a painless way. Besides Mišković, the officials of the Democratic Party are the most accused of corruption, and she herself is the most responsible, which contributes to the failure to consolidate and find a new field of action.
Namely, regardless of Miroslav Mišković's intriguing past, the court proceedings for alleged abuses are based on the privatization of road companies that took place during the period of the Democratic Party's rule, at which representatives of the political establishment pointed the finger much more often than at the accused and his co-perpetrators, as if guilt already proven. An example of this is the pre-election campaign, where a video of Mišković's company building appeared in the promotional video as a synonym for corruption, which the Government will resolutely fight against. However, if the indictment of the Prosecutor's Office is not sufficiently strong and well-argued, this process will have serious consequences and mark a double collapse - of the judicial and political system - because, more than anything else, it will show the extent to which the institutions are devastated and unable to make a departure from the authoritarian model. functioning".
Photo: Tanjug / Marko DjokovicTogether at the concert
Government pressure on judicial bodies and media abuse
There are numerous examples of government pressure on judicial authorities and abuse of the media in the Mišković case. Vučić turned Mišković into a political opponent - a potential coalition partner of the Democratic Party, but also of the entire opposition. So, Mišković gave 30-50 thousand euros per month to unnamed politicians. Then, when the Constitutional Court accepted Mišković's appeal and determined that the Special Court had violated his right to a limited period of detention guaranteed by the Constitution, Vučić said the following: "Criminals and tycoons and some politicians are uniting again." We know how much money you have and how you got it. We know everything you have, very great power, money, everything you have. I am glad that the DS openly supported Mišković, because now some decisions of certain authorities, as well as some articles in the media, are much clearer to me."
Before the 2014 parliamentary elections, "Kurir" and "Informer" write that Mišković is giving 100 million euros to overthrow Aleksandar Vučić, with the obligatory accompanying outrage and warning of SNS and SPS officials, and Police Minister Stefanović says that the next government will be formed by SNS or Mišković: "We are choosing between a government led by Vučić, which will bring together all those who want to accept deep reforms, the continuation of the fight against crime and corruption, European integration or a government whose essential pivot will be Mišković." SNS even announces that Mišković is the DS's candidate for prime minister, and a few days before the election, Vučić "invites citizens to go to the polls in order to defeat those who can unite at the call of a tycoon."
All this does not subside much even after the election, so Mišković is a frequent guest on the cover of "Informer". In September 2014, the EU delegation in Serbia was forced to announce that the false allegations published in "Informer" claiming that the EU is paying lawyers to defend the owner of Delta Holding, Miroslav Mišković, and that the lawyers' strike in the fall of 2014 was Mišković's fault, according to the minister Selakovic.
Such examples are numerous. However, the court case itself was weak, as the verdict showed. It started first with malfeasance in road companies - the accusation was that money was extracted, not from state, but from private companies. Mišković was in custody for more than 7 months, when the indictment was handed down (May 2013), which included the accusation of tax evasion. Mišković was released to defend himself with a record bail of 12 million euros, and at the end of 2014, the judge was changed - after pressure from the president of the court for giving a passport and enabling Mišković to travel to London, judge Vladimir Vučinić "removed" from the case, since the proceedings were merged with the trial of Milo Đurašković for abuses during the privatization of the FAM company.
Later, the proceedings will be separated again, due to Miroslav Mišković's health problems, so in March 2016, his son Marko received a first-instance verdict of 3,5 years in prison for tax evasion in a separate trial. In May 2016, a month before the first-instance verdict was handed down to Miroslav Mišković, the prosecution specified the indictment, accusing Mišković of advising his son to avoid paying taxes - and for that he was sentenced to five years. The whole uproar from the beginning, about abuses in road companies, quietly fell into the water. A year and a bit later, the first-instance verdict was overturned and sent back for a retrial.
As we have seen, Vučić profited from the arrest of Miroslav Mišković, and the support for the arrest was unique. And really: Mišković was, to put it mildly, an unpopular figure in society at that time. Probably for many reasons. Mišković became rich during the nineties, when the state brutally robbed the vast majority of citizens - with hyperinflation, old currency savings, pyramid schemes of Jezda and Dafina, the Loan for the Revival of Serbia a little earlier... and Mišković was making millions.
Now, 12 years after his arrest, the time has come for Miroslav Mišković's empire to strike back. Delta Holding demands the payment of 1,4 billion dinars and 390.000 euros. It remains to be seen how Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and other ministers who celebrated with Mišković at the beginning of September will react to this lawsuit.
Source: Forbes
