Prosecutor dismissed after power company arrests

Medija centar

The prosecutor investigating embezzlement in the Serbian national power company (EPS) has been removed from her post following six arrests, N1 learned on Thursday.

Prosecutor Bojana Savovic of the Belgrade Higher Prosecution spent more than a year investigating the EPS. She ordered the arrest of six people on Wednesday and was dismissed a day later. She was transferred out of the anti-corruption section. The six EPS, CIP, Bauwesen and i Italiana Construcioni employees are suspected of causing damages of 7.5 million Dollars during construction work on a power plant.

The Belgrade Higher Public Prosecution said that Savovic was transferred to the general crime section at her own request, denying media reports that she was dismissed. The statement also claimed that the arrests were made under orders from chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic and his deputy Brankica Maric to speed things up because Savovic was holding up the investigation.

Savovic told N1 that the claims in the Higher Public Prosecution statement are false. “It’s not true that I expressed the wish to transfer and it’s absolutely not true that I was stalling the case,” she said.

N1 learned that Savovic’s associate on the EPS case Prosecutor Jasmina Paunovic was also transferred out of the anti-corruption section.

Opposition leader Marinika Tepic broke the news on her Twitter profile saying that the prosecutor was dismissed following the arrest of six people. “They didn’t even let her interrogate them! Why was she removed without finishing this? This is how they manipulate cases giving them to someone who won’t ask the right questions,” Tepic tweeted.

Savovic was one of the best anti-corruption prosecutors, having won every case she prosecuted over the past five years. The interrogation of the six EPS staff was taken over by Brankica Maric a close associate of chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic.