MITROVIĆ: My persecution is the result of institutional corruption and unlawful influence by the SSPO

Abuse of official position to carry out a classic unlawful political persecution. Tese are the core accusations contained in two criminal complaints sent to the Supreme State Prosecutor Milorad Marković and signed by Lidija Mitrović, a former special prosecutor who is now on the run after refusing to serve a seven-month prison sentence.

Extensive documentation arrived yesterday at Television E in Bandići in a sealed envelope bearing a postmark from Budva. The first criminal complaint, for abuse of office, targets High Court judge Nenad Vujanović, as well as three Court of Appeal judges - Vesna Moštrokol, Predrag Tabaš and Zorica Milanović.

According to the second complaint, the persecution of Lidija Mitrović was carried out on the orders of Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović, with the co-perpetration of special prosecutor Miloš Šoškić, and with the falsification of data by court expert Nemanja Nikolić.

SERIOUS PROCEDURAL VIOLATIONS

Mitrović states that serious procedural violations were committed and that both the prosecution and the court failed to apply substantive law.

She claims that this was not due to mistakes, but to intent and a prior unwritten agreement between Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović and judge Nenad Vujanović.

Judge Vujanović adopted almost entirely the reasoning of the guilty verdict from Novović, which I personally learned from Novović in his office before the trial began.

That judge Vujanović read someone else’s decision when pronouncing the judgment (case no. K-s 21/23 of November 2, 2023) is indicated by the fact that in the courtroom, while announcing the verdict and explaining the reasoning, he said that in the absence of legal practice he was issuing a guilty verdict – „so let the Court of Appeal decide whether he is right…“.

FIRST RULING OF THE COURT OF APPEAL

The Court of Appeal showed that judge Vujanović was not right. A panel composed of Vesna Moštrokol (president) and members Srđan Vujović and Dragoje Jović found that judge Vujanović had, we quote, violated a fundamental principle of the Criminal Procedure Code - that the offense must be proven with certainty.

Judge Vesna Moštrokol, who chaired the panel of the Court of Appeal when the first High Court verdict was overturned, later acted as reporting judge - and suggested confirming the verdict she had previously opposed as panel president?!

The Court of Appeal noted that the judgment contained ambiguities and contradictions regarding the level of suspicion, of such a nature that they undermined not only the verdict but also the indictment itself - Mitrović states, among other things, in her complaint.

After the Court of Appeal overturned the verdict, with very negative assessments of the work of both the judge and the special prosecutor, a reaction from the High Court was expected.

And it did come, but not the one expected: judge Nenad Vujanović issued the same verdict again, with the same reasoning that had previously been strongly challenged by the Court of Appeal.

WHEN POLITICS DECIDES

Then, evidently, politics interfered in the judiciary: suddenly, the composition of the Court of Appeal panel was changed, although this is not usually done in the same case.

The change of panel also meant a change of decision: on May 6, 2025, the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of Lidija Mitrović to a seven-month prison sentence issued by the High Court.

And to make matters even more unusual: judge Vesna Moštrokol, who had chaired the panel that overturned the first High Court verdict, now acted as reporting judge in the second instance - and suggested confirming the very verdict she had previously opposed?!

In other words: the same judge made two different decisions in the same case. It is difficult to find a similar example in Montenegrin judicial practice.

The fugitive prosecutor Lidija Mitrović claims this is only part of an illegal operation involving fabricated evidence and falsified financial reports. In her complaint, she states that judge Vujanović gave particular weight to the so-called „reports“ of economic analyst Ljiljana Dakić regarding tax payments of four legal entities.

FALSE FINANCIAL EVIDENCE

However, these alleged reports were false, Mitrović claims, consisting of only a few handwritten A4 pages.

- I was convicted by the High Court in Podgorica based on the so-called „report“ of analyst Dakić, which contains her opinion on declared or utilized VAT and corporate profit tax for four legal entities, for accounting periods exceeding €10,000 - Mitrović explains.

She then elaborates and demonstrates in her complaint that the reports on tax payments for the companies Parmos and „Work for you“ - used by judge Vujanović - are simple, easily provable forgeries.

She claims that non-existent invoices were deliberately added in order to exceed the monthly unpaid tax threshold of 10,000 euros.

According to Article 264, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code, if the amount of tax evaded exceeds €10,000, a prison sentence is mandatory.

- If the amount of the obligation referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article whose payment is evaded exceeds 10,000 euros, the perpetrator shall be punished with imprisonment from one to six years and a fine - states Article 264, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code.

THE CRUCIAL €10,000 THRESHOLD

The former prosecutor claims that the legal entities did not commit a criminal offense exceeding €10,000 in unpaid tax, which is why she applied the concept of a deferred prosecution, under which the companies’ legal representatives paid all taxes owed and were additionally obliged to donate thousands of euros for humanitarian purposes.

According to the evidence in her complaints, judge Vujanović, on the orders of prosecutors Šoškić and Novović, falsely presented financial indicators. She supports this claim by referencing analytical account records of the companies „Parmos“ and „Work 4 you“.

It turns out that four invoices from the company „Betoncon“ from June were transferred into July in the report for „Parmos“, totaling around 6,000 euros, solely to falsely present monthly unpaid tax exceeding €10,000.

An even more drastic situation occurred in the tax calculation for „Work for you“, where two invoices totaling about €8,500 were recorded in September 2017 - although these invoices do not appear at all in the analytical records...

All of this, she claims, was done to surpass the critical €10,000 threshold and thus accuse Lidija Mitrović of failing to prosecute certain individuals and companies.

 AWAITING A RESPONSE FROM MILORAD MARKOVIĆ

- The judge acted with intent when drawing conclusions to the detriment of the defendant, doing so deliberately: had only two individuals been involved, the verdict would have been acquittal, but since four individuals were involved, as judge Vujanović stated, the verdict had to be guilty and had to result in seven months of imprisonment - the complaint states.

Numerous constructions revealed by Mitrović in her complaints suggest that there was a plan to accuse her of allegedly protecting responsible persons in companies that violated the law. According to findings by financial expert Hamid Šabović, the case documentation is incomplete and falsely presented.

The essence of the two complaints submitted by Lidija Mitrović to Supreme State Prosecutor Milorad Marković is to demonstrate that the High Court (judge Vujanović) and the Court of Appeal (three-member panel) deliberately ignored inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the documentation and used them as the basis for a conviction.

- The only logical explanation for such evident, legally unsustainable conduct by the judges is that it is the result of institutional corruption and unlawful influence by the Special State Prosecutor’s Office of Montenegro, whereby the mentioned judges accepted to consciously violate Montenegrin law and fabricate evidence in criminal proceedings to the detriment of the defendant. These individuals, by unlawfully exploiting their official positions, jointly and intentionally participated in committing a criminal offense - Mitrović concludes.

In the coming days, we will publish parts of the criminal complaint in which Lidija Mitrović explains the motives behind such actions, not only of judge Nenad Vujanović, but also of the leadership of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office, Vladimir Novović and Miloš Šoškić.