On December 12, 2012, when Miroslav Mišković was arrested for embezzlement in road companies, it was as if the framework was set in which Serbia would move in the coming years. All the elements of the script were there, the actors came on stage and started a play that continues to this day, and which will certainly continue in the foreseeable future: the arrest of the tycoon, false death threats to Aleksandar Vučić, a loyal media avalanche that creates public opinion on benefit to the authorities and pressure on the judiciary.
The main actor is still there: no more quiet, slow, grave voice, devoid of any emotion, no more fingers folded into a pyramid. The inner radical broke free long ago and came to the surface, but some characteristics remained: every day bigger, better, more relentless and honest, and still in an angry fight against the tycoons, just like in 2012: "It will be an interesting campaign - the people against the tycoons ", Vučić said on September 14, 2017, in response to hints that Dragan Đilas could be one of the candidates for mayor of Belgrade.
However, many circumstances have changed. Vučić and SNS are starting their sixth year in power, which since 2012 has permeated almost all the capillaries of society, from the level of the Republic to the level of the tenants' assembly, and at the same time swallowed up almost all the media, made senseless and destroyed almost all the institutions of the state, developing authoritarian rule and "differentiation " in all fields.
However, the stone that started the avalanche of growth of this absurdly inflated and oversized lump called SNS fell out of the system bed at the beginning of September: by a unanimous decision of the Appellate Court in Belgrade, on September 6, 2017, Miroslav Mišković's first-instance verdict was legally confirmed, acquitting him of the charges. that he participated in the abuse of his official position, and the verdict according to which he was sentenced to five years in prison in mid-2016 - for helping his son Marko in tax evasion - it was canceled and sent back for a new trial.
And in contrast to June 2016, when Mišković was convicted in the first instance, when Vučić said that it was "significant progress in the fight against corruption compared to the earlier period", adding: "I, as Prime Minister, cannot comment on court verdicts", at the end of September 2017 sounded somewhat different.
"Here are the tycoons, let them run your country and steal everything that has been created in the meantime," said Vučić to "Novosti" on September 27 of this year, after the aforementioned decision of the Court of Appeal.
An echo of the president's thoughts followed: "I am completely surprised by this behavior of the court, I don't want to interfere, but I think it is not a good message." We need to have a completely different behavior, the responsibility of those who are obliged to implement the law, especially those who should sanction those who break the law", MP Milovan Drecun said a day later to RTS and explained that "if we don't have that orderly system, then we won't have the expected development and improvement of living conditions", as well as that they "understand the justified angry reaction of President Vučić", and that they hope that the final decision will be different.
On the same day, the former Minister of Justice Selaković (now President Vučić's general secretary) spoke out, who only continued where he left off with his comments on the trial during his ministry: "As someone who respects the rule of law and who advocates for it, I have to accept I respect the decision of that court, no matter how shameful I personally think that decision is."
Such and similar statements - a clear pressure on the work of the judicial authorities - were present during all five years of the Mišković trial. "We do not see it as a problem that a decision was canceled during the appeal procedure. It doesn't matter who is in the process, it's such a normal thing. The problem is if it was expected that the police report, and even the prosecutor's indictment, would be wrapped only in a court verdict and that the verdict would be passed in advance," said the president of the Association of Judges of Serbia, Dragana Boljević, to these "echoes and reactions" of Vučić's thoughts.
Also, the decision of the Appellate Court was a real "slap" for the first-instance verdict. In its decision, the Appellate Court says that the Chamber of the Special Court, which issued the first-instance verdict, violated not only the Code of Criminal Procedure, but also the Constitution of Serbia, as well as the Convention on Human Rights. As written in the decision, the first-instance court made a mistake when it turned to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the National Assembly for an authentic interpretation of the Law, because during the proceedings the court should have resolved the issue on its own. "Thus, with this court action, there was a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which article guarantees the right to a fair trial, and which Convention our country has signed and which provisions apply as an integral part of positive law, as well as violations of Article 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, which established the principle of separation of powers and guaranteed the independence of the judiciary in relation to the legislative and executive.
Therefore, in this particular case, it is not only a formal legal deficiency (who is authorized to request an interpretation), but an essential violation of the law, since the court is asking for an authority of another branch of government to interpret a provision of the law, which ultimately depends on the decision in the court proceedings that is in progress", says the decision of the Court of Appeal.
It seems that the president of the state uttered those words "here are the tycoons" in an affect, that he had a real "angry reaction", as MP Drecun said. Finally, Mišković's arrest and trial took place his, Vučić's, from the beginning - it brought him a tremendous rapid growth in popularity and practically enthroned him as the uncrowned emperor of Serbia.
However, after these full five years of his government, it is quite certain that the president said this completely calmly, with full awareness of what he is talking about, all for the sake of a new - who knows which order - election campaign.
THE BEGINNING: Why was this "Vučić's" trial of Mišković? Let's remember the beginnings. It's the fall of 2012, SNS and SPS have just come to power, and Vučić is playing 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.
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 being 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 form teams that will deal with this problem." Let's recall 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 as the secretary of the Council, who heads the Bureau for Coordination of Security Services, that is, operationally manages the entire security sector in Serbia.
In the same show, Justice Minister 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.
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 very carefully follows 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."
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.
"Delta earned its first million in 1991 by exporting wood from Bosnia." We received a loan of one million marks from Tršćanska banka, with seven percent interest, primarily based on the name of Miroslav Mišković. We reinvested that money in Serbia with 15 percent monthly interest. When the job was done, we paid the interest to the bank. The time came to collect the loan, and we were left with 30-40 percent of the profit due to exchange rate differences. From the earnings from that business, we bought wood in Bosnia and started exporting it. In four or five months, we earned a million marks" (from the book by Miša Brkić Business class.
During the 2000s, they claim, he made a habit of paying customs duties with significantly longer payment terms than was usual. An insider (via Carla del Ponte, says "Wikileaks") obtained documents that show that in the mid-nineties, in this way, Miskovic "became good" for millions of dollars. With the change of government in 2007, Miskovic's growth was accelerated: already in 24, he was on the Forbes list of the rich, when his net worth was one billion dollars. He was mentioned in several of the "XNUMX controversial privatizations", among others, in the privatization of C-market, which, they say, led him to a monopoly position in retail.
There was a widespread belief that Mišković was using his wealth to influence politicians, even to form governments.
Therefore, through all the state arrangements and all the authorities and all the troubles that the states in this area went through from 1990 onwards, Mišković went through increasing his wealth. It is clear why Mišković had such an image in 2012. However, since his arrest - paradoxically at first glance - his image has blossomed, precisely thanks to - again paradoxically - Aleksandar Vučić. He went through purgatory and the media chase, and came out of it with a (partial) acquittal. What Minister Selaković said, "something happened that was unimaginable until a few years ago": Vučić managed to make Miroslav Mišković appear - almost sympathetic - due to persecution and public pressure.
