Opposition Official: Why the Probe of Alleged Attempt to Bribe Inspector Milenkovic in Jovanjica Drug Farm Case Isn’t in the Hands of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade?

Marinika Tepic (BETAPHOTO/AMIR HAMZAGIC)

Freedom and Justice Party deputy leader Marinika Tepic has described as contradictory the fact that an investigation into the alleged attempt to bribe inspector Slobodan Milenkovic to cover up the drug farm Jovanjica case has not been placed in the hands of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade.

In an interview with the Sept. 12 issue of Belgrade daily Danas, Tepic said that “it is very interesting” that the official note made by Milenkovic, who was the chief of the Belgrade police drug enforcement department until recently, had been forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime rather than to the special anti-corruption department of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Tepic further said that in another case, in which the former Interior Ministry secretary of state, Dijana Hrkalovic, had accused inspector Milenkovic of some criminal activity, Hrkalovic had been summoned to a hearing by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office and not by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime.

“All cases involving major corruption, wherever committed, are forwarded to the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade. The same procedure was applied in the case of Katarina Petrovic, a police officer from Valjevo, who was initially and entirely unfounded charged with grand corruption so that her case could be investigated by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office.” Tepic recalled, adding that “later on, under the public pressure,” the Office had to drop the case.  

In 2022, inspector Milenkovic said that MP Vladimir Djukanovic, the defense attorney of Predrag Koluvija, the major suspect in the Jovanjica marijuana farm case, and Aleksandar Papic, the co-owner of tabloid Objektiv, had offered him EUR 100,000 as a bribe to close the case.