Police Protection For Dafina

It is not quite clear why the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, in spite of a request made by the Belgrade District Attorney's Office on June 17, 1993, does not wish to carry out an informative talk with Dafina Milanovic, owner of Dafiment Bank and send her answers to the district attorney, who, because he does not have them cannot start an investigation against Dafina who is suspected of robbing account holders. Under the Penal Law, the district attorney cannot reach a decision on the procedure he is to adopt without a statement by Mme Milanovic, nor can the District Attorney's Office carry out an informative talk during the socalled pretrial period. And this phase is currently within the competency of the Ministry of the Interior. This detail, among other things, explains why the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) is not letting go of this particular ministry. In other words, the police are indirectly responsible for who will be prosecuted and when, considering that they can, but need not, comply with the demand made by the District Attorney's Office.

In June 1993 lawyer Radmila Petakovic was the first to file charges against Dafina Milanovic for fraud. ``We immediately sent a demand to the Serbian Ministry of the Interior in Belgrade, to collect the necessary information via an informative talk with Dafina Milanovic. We intervened seeral times both verbally and in written form, but to this day (April 26) we have not received a reply,'' said the competent persons at the District Attorney's Office. They do not know if any talks at a higher level had been carried out (between the republican attorney general and the interior minister), but as they said at the District Attorney's Office, ``the case is still kicking,'' the only snag being the lack of basic facts. ``Dafina Milanovic's statements on TV, in the press or before a committee, don't mean a thing to me, because they are not relevant facts,'' said Radmila Petakovic.

Why is the Ministry of the Interior playing mum and not complying with the District Attorney's Office? The Ministry of the Interior, the payments transaction department, the National Bank of Yugoslavia and the National Bank of Serbia have not filed charges against Dafina Milanovic. Is this because they are not wronged parties?

The Dafiment bank scandal, which the press have dubbed `Dafingate' is in focus again after Belgradebased biweekly ``Duga'' carried a long interview with Mme Milanovic, in which she revealed a list of the bank's clients who had collected their money after the bank had officially been closed down. The list contains many political names.

A recent SPS statement with regard to the ``illegal grab of foreign currency'' in Dafiment Bank, and the conclusion that this ``is deeply immoral'' points inexorably to the fact that Dafina Milanovic and the SPS are partners. The statement never once mentions Dafina Milanovic's eventual guilt, while the woman is without a doubt, a cheat. According to the SPS statement, the tricked citizens should turn their anger against those who have ``violated moral norms and got their money ahead of others and regardless of normal procedure,'' which in fact means that there is no need to suspect Dafina Milanovic, least of all bring her to court. So how can the police ask her to come down for an informative talk when everybody knows that Belgrade Police inspectors can't reach her. How can they question her when it is known that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic received her in his cabinet, and as she claims, asked ``what the situation was and if she could go on?'' (For purposes of comparison, when Romanians rushed to invest their money in the private savings-bank ``Karitas'' which gave very high interest rates just like Dafina, Romanian President Ion Iliescu, who is not a banker, warned Romanians via television that the matter concerned a great hoax. He was soon proved right.) What policeman would have the guts to file charges against Mme Milanovic just because he had reached the conclusion that there was enough evidence to prove that she was guilty of fraud? Why does the SPS message sound lackadaisical when it says that ``the competent authorities must step up their work in order to reach the truth and ascertain the responsibility of those who have violated legal and moral norms.'' The violation of moral norms does not come within the competency of the court. If they had really wished to find out the truth, they would have ordered Serbian Interior Minister Zoran Sokolovic or whoever else does the decision-making in the police, to see to it that the police inspectors complied with the District Attorney's demand and carried out the informative talk with Mme Milanovic, which would allow the court, as the only competent body to determine the truth.

It is possible that the police do not wish to do their duty because in that case a lot of dirty linen would be aired, including information that the police and the authorities do not wish to become public knowledge. Information such as: what happened to the millions of Germans marks which the police confiscated from Dafina's couriers who were transferring the money abroad and were sometimes caught at the border (S.R., an exboxer and policeman under suspension caught with five million German marks at Belgrade's Surcin Airport). There are many who do not wish to see Dafina give evidence in court. We were told unofficially at the Palace of Justice in Belgrade that for the moment, however, they have no reason for fear. There are two strong currents in the state leadership: one is fighting to prevent Dafina from entering court, while the other wishes to see her in dock. The first group consists of those who managed to collect their money and interest rates thanks to their office, while the other is made up of those who did not invest any money, or if they did, failed to collect it. Both currents wish to compromise their opponents as much as possible and eliminate them, thus creating more vacant places in authority. For the time being the first current is stronger, and the battle has just started to flare up.