Serbia's opposition leader denies corruption accusations

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The head of the only opposition-held municipality in Belgrade Marko Bastac came under fire from the authorities, including President Aleksandar Vucic for allegedly taking bribe from investors in the capital.

Bastac’s best man Lazar Lesnjak accused him in a video clip of demanding money from the investors who illegally built on the territory of Stari Grad municipality.

Pro-government Studio B TV aired the video in which Lesnjak explained that he had to bring money in envelopes to Bastac and that once when he failed to do that, Bastac beat him and tortured for hours.

Commenting on the video, Vucic said that he did not doubt that Lesnjak told the truth. „I’m not saying this to exercise any pressure,“ on the judiciary, Vucic said.

Earlier, Bastac refused an offer to take a polygraph, „after all what had happened in Serbia regarding the polygraph,“ in an allusion to the test reportedly passed in Belgrade by a Kosovo Serb accused by Pristina of taking part in the assassination of Oliver Ivanovic, local Serb politician in Northern Mitrovica, gunned down outside his office in January 2018.

Vucic said Bastac could take the polygraph in England or Russia if he wanted to, adding that if the claims were valid, it was the case of systematic corruption and that after that there would not be place in politics for Bastac.

In his denial, Bastac called on prosecutors to investigate the accusation and said he did not know if Lesnjak had any contacts with the investors.

„If I knew I would have reported him myself,“ he said, describing the accusation as a lie and said he could not think about other Lesnjak’s motive except blackmail.

„It’s unbelievable that someone can say such a lie. That doesn’t sound normal,“ Bastac said.

He added it was significant that the accusations came a day after he put down a huge banner portraying Vucic and Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and reading ‘the light at the end of the tunnel,’ hanging above a motorway and only several days after he said the Belgraders would defend the Old Bridge, the authorities wanted to move, with their bodies.

The Stari Grad municipality authorities also denied Lesnjak claims, reiterated it had to be given under duress.

„Our obligation is, not because of you who know that you made this up, but because of the public’s interest, to say that we will use all legal mechanisms to defend ourselves from the state terror directed by Aleksandar Vucic.“

The statement added that in the last four years, the municipality was subjected to all kinds of inspections and that no wrong-doing was found.