[ALBSA-Info] TEXT-Milosevic accused of creaming customs dues

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

TEXT-Milosevic accused of creaming customs dues

  
BELGRADE, March 31 (Reuters) - The indictment against former Yugoslav 
president Slobodan Milosevic accuses him of enriching himself and his cohorts 
and breaking the law to ensure his party held on to power in Serbia. 

The following is a partial text of the document, a copy of which was obtained 
by Reuters: 

"Based on evidence collected by the criminal police, there is grounded 
suspicion that Slobodan Milosevic as the president of Serbia until May 17, 
1997 and thereafter as the president of Yugoslavia until October 5, 2000, 
committed crimes with the intention of securing benefits for himself and a 
certain number of persons, to secure to his SPS party property and other 
benefits with the aim of preserving that political party in power. 

He did this by overstepping the limits of his official authorisations, by 
issuing illegal orders violating Yugoslav law and the constitutions of Serbia 
and Yugoslavia. 

The implementation of these orders resulted in destroying the payments system 
of the country and causing monetary instability. According to evidence 
collected, the damage inflicted to the budgets of Serbia and Yugoslavia is 
estimated at 1 billion dinars (1 billion DEM at that time) and almost 200 
million German marks ($90.17 million). 

In 1994 and 1995 Milosevic organised a group of federal officials and other 
persons and agreed with them and thereafter issued orders to violate federal 
laws, that is not to implement Yugoslav laws, with the intention of executing 
the orders. 

All the activities, for which orders had been issued or had been agreed, 
including the forgery of official identification documents, have the 
characteristics of criminal acts under federal law, for which prescribed 
sentence is more than five years in prison. 

As the president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic organised a meeting in 1994 
with the newly appointed Federal Customs Director Mihalj Kertes and Yugoslav 
Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic and Jovan Zebic. 

The meeting agreed with Milosevic's proposal that a part of the customs i
ncome should be redirected to a separate bank account set up with Beogradska 
Bank. 

The purpose of this redirection of incomes, belonging to the federal budget 
and that were supposed to be used for the planned budget items, was to 
allegedly provide funds for public companies and state bodies in Serbia. 

The next meeting, held in 1995, agreed that a part of customs fees should be 
collected in cash. The money collected in such way should later be directed 
to a circle of beneficiaries that would be determined at the separate 
meetings. 

The (criminally) charged Mihalj Kertes and Nikola Sainovic have assisted 
Slobodan Milosevic in commiting the above mentioned acts by using all 
available means in their separate authorities to fulfil the orders from the 
agreement they made with Slobodan Milosevic in 1994 and 1995. 

The two later tried to remove all obstacles that would create a difficulty in 
carrying out the illegal orders given by (criminally) charged Slobodan 
Milosevic. They later tried to hide the criminal acts that he committed by 
preventing examination of the work of the federal customs and by taking an 
active part in utilising the financial assets acquired through the above 
mentioned criminal acts. All collected funds were taken directly to the 
Federal Customs Department and Mihalj Kertes made decisions on their 
utilisation based on the agreement, on the order of the criminally charged 
Slobodan Milosevic. According to such arrangements, on the 7th of June 1996 
Nikola Sainovic and Dusan Matkovic were paid 900,000 DEM. On November 30 
1996, Nikola Sainovic was given 150,000 DEM and than another 100,000. All the 
money was paid in the office of Mihalj Kertes by the order of Slobodan 
Milosevic. 

END OF PARTIAL TEXT