Opposition Party: High Prosecutors’ Council Member Involved in Money Laundering

Zagorka Dolovac (BETAPHOTO/MILAN ILIC)

The president of the People’s Party, Vladimir Gajic, pressed criminal charges on June 11 before the Higher Public Prosecution in Belgrade against Chief Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac, a member of the High Council of Prosecutors, Predrag Cetkovic, and the chief appellate prosecutor in Novi Sad, Tatjana Lagumdzija.

Gajic said that the charges focused on Cetkovic who, in his words, was under investigation by the Prosecution for Organized Crime while he was a lawyer, over a suspicion that he had been involved in “money laundering by presenting fictitious lawyer invoices,” the People’s Party declared in a statement. “He concealed that fact when he applied for membership in the High Council of Prosecutors, by which he has deceived the public and the Assembly of Serbia,” Gajic stated.

He stated that Cetkovic was under investigation in a case against the former director of the Infrastrukture Zeleznice Srbije, Miroljub Jevtic, who was convicted in 2022 by the Special Court in the first instance to one year in prison for receiving a bribe. “Grounded suspicion exists that Zagorka Dolovac had stopped the further investigation against Cetkovic on a hint from Tatjana Lagumdzija, who was at that time the deputy higher prosecutor in Novi Sad, and is a member of the State Council of Prosecutors and a close friend of Dolovac. Lagumdzija has been Cetkovic’s emotional partner for more than 20 years,” it was declared in the criminal charges.

Gajic said that Lagumdzija had used her personal relation with Dolovac in order for Cetkovic to be protected against criminal prosecution. “Zagorka Dolovac used her authority in the hierarchy to directly influence the stopping all further criminal proceedings,” he said, adding that Cetkovic was then elected member of the High Council of Prosecutors, “although the investigation found that around RSD10 million had been laundered via fictitious lawyer invoices.”