Smiljko`s fault

The act of arresting Smiljko Kostic, the director of the Tobacco Industry of Nis (DIN), on February 9 of this year, with the simultaneous suspension of all management bodies and the introduction of a receivership consisting of Zoran Arandjelovic and Zivota Cosic, was then explained with a justified doubt that “Kostic had, at the time of concluding business deals of importing raw materials and primary products for the needs of the Tobacco Factory in Nis, and also while selling the final products, over the last few years, illegally appropriated a few million dinars”, using that money to “furbish the family buildings in Matvejevac and Zitoradje, as well as for the purchase of real estate in Nis and Belgrade”. An arrest followed “on the basis of the thus far concluded verifications”, and in reality based on a letter which engineer Omer Kulak and economist Vidan Mitic, dismissed DIN managers, had sent off in November 1994 to all the important addresses in the country: from heads of states, to president of the National Bank of Yugoslavia to political parties. This letter turned into criminal charges in 1995, dispatched to the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Nis and numerous authorized addresses.

Basically, Kostic is accused of having caused the government damages of around 50 million marks and of having taken 126 million marks out of the country from which 10 million “vanished into thin air”.

What remains in the recent indictment is “a number of offenses of abuse of official position and abuse of authority in the economy”. Accusations of conscienceless business dealings and illegal acquisition of property have disappeared in the meantime. Having raised charges, the prosecutor’s office simultaneously proposed a security measure of a “prohibition of conducting his office and activities connected to managing and disposing of socially-owned property”. The prosecutor’s office further suggests that “property acquired through offenses” should be confiscated from the accused Kostic, although no one has thus far explained just what exactly that means.
Omer Kulak promised that he would soon have a lot to say. When the trial  starts. If it starts.