The Party and it’s Needs

Having decided to build a nicer and better house than all his predecessors, prior to the construction of his villa in Zitoradje, Smiljko Kostic first demanded that his architect supply him with photographs of one hundred of the most beautiful houses from various parts of the world. He opted for a combination of various styles and, just like always, put an old pair of shorts on and personally started mixing the mortar, stopping only upon smelling his wife Lydia`s cabbage meal during the lunch hour break.  Only an unfortunate accident (he stepped on a nail) forced him to let matters rest and return to what he knows best, to managing the Tobacco Industry of Nis.

The public prosecutor, following a six-month long investigation, has raised charges against Kostic on August 10, charging him with theft of over three million dollars and over two million marks, while Kostic`s houses - in Belgrade - Jablanicka St., Nis - Timocka and Borovo St., Gornji Matejevac and Zitoradje - are held as absolute proof that he has stolen from the state. Kostic is accused of abuse of official position and abuse of authority in the economy. The prosecution, broadened on three occasions, charged him with nine offenses, however the indictment was raised for only two of them.

CREDITS: Smiljko Kostic`s defender, the lawyer Slobodan Soskic, who had previously defended the then jailed Vuk Draskovic, ironically reminds that real estate belonging to the accused is not by itself an offense. As Soskic stated for VREME, by proving that the houses were legally constructed, Kostic shall not be free of the offenses which the indictment charges him with, which is why the defense shall not deal with those issues at all. Otherwise completely convinced of his client’s innocence, Soskic is, following the announcement of the report of the investigation which had not come up with a single proof of irregular business dealings, entirely convinced that Smiljko cannot be sentenced. Those houses, behind which the prosecutor is ”hiding”, were constructed, as the defender deems, most probably with the help of credits which Kostic had on a number of occasions taken abroad, of which the largest one is from 1992, of five million dollars from the Swiss Trust Bank in Switzerland. In Nis’s  business circles, where Kostic was always an inviolable authority, there is talk of his having amassed a fortune in so-called brokerage deals - traveling all over the world, where in time he had acquired extremely powerful connections, he mediated between companies with mutual interests for cooperation, taking a percentage for himself, which is not an offense, as his lawyer confirms. There is one more thing - Smiljko Kostic had in 1995, as newspapers then published, received from Philip Morris, with whom he was up to his neck in negotiations on investment, remuneration of 150.000 dollars ”for innovations in shortening the process of cigarette manufacture”.

“Those who are asking themselves - why does Smiljko have so much while I don’t - are the ones who got rid of him. That’s their slogan! When he comes out of jail, we’ll build another house and give it to someone!”, stated Kostic’s wife Lydia in February. The director of the Tobacco Industry of Nis also claims that he had never stolen a thing.
“I have nothing to fear. I constructed houses in my country, where all could see what I was doing, I never hid what I had. Let Gvozdenovic (the prosecutor who lodged criminal charges against Kostic, author’s note) call me, I’ll go to the police on my own”, said Smiljko shortly prior to the arrest. He wasn’t afraid, he even refused to leave the country, even though the pilot of the plane with which he was to fly to Italy offered his protection which a passenger has a right to, if, just as things happened that day for Kostic, he has passed passport control. “I only have one homeland”, he said, strolling over to the FR of Yugoslavia’s territory once again, coat hanging over his arm from which a fairly heavy briefcase was protruding.

“This is a political case”, claims lawyer Soskic.

Kostic belongs, as politicians from his neighborhood describe him, to the old school which still believes in the mutual attachment of the party and it’s aparatchiks. He was convinced that his party comrades would not turn against him. His self-confidence was logically boosted by the fact that the Tobacco Industry of Nis had been bringing in the largest amount of cash into the state treasury for years. Mirko Marjanovic personally banged his head on the gong which pronounced a hunt for Smiljko`s head, during a session of the parliament of Serbia, when he yelled at minister Stojiljkovic “Arrest him!”. Milan Beko, politically neutral, was the first person to announce what was on the minds of those above him during his mandate. Kostic was opposed to privatization till the very last moment, and, ideologically in love with socially-owned property, decisively stood up against the entire government, opposing the sale of his national factory. “Only over my dead body”, he said at an urgently called workers’ assembly, just a month prior to the arrest. With excellent connections in Philip Morris, one of the largest international cigarette manufacturers, who had negotiated with Kostic over a long period of time about investing into the Tobacco Industry of Nis (DIN), Kostic was allegedly close to signing the agreement. Following his arrest, it has been confirmed from various sources that the Karic brothers are first in line for the purchase of both the factory and the realization of those agreements. He did his utmost to put a stop to the cigarette black market, which had on a number of occasions covered 90 percent of the market and placed DIN in a highly uncomfortable position. Which is where he stepped onto the turf of, as at least the pages of the chronicles state over the past few years, the deceased Vlada Tref, and later of the Interspid firm, whose VIP, as people claim, is Marko Milosevic himself, the son of the president of the FRY. Instead of smuggling, like every honest Serbian director does, Kostic had for years complained of tax and excise which totally squeezed out his tobacco from, amongst others, one of the most promising markets - the Serbian Republic. No one dared to touch the cigarette re-sellers on the street who are backed by, as Kostic used to claim, a circle from or close to the government, which is why he accused many of treason.