The defendants, arrested in October, were indicted for abuse of power for personal material gain between June 2006 and December 2007. They allegedly paid for unnecessary services and equipment provided by private companies, without following public procurement procedure and overcharging the Kolubara mine for the number of work hours provided by the companies.
B92 News acquired documentation that allegedly proves that theft at Kolubara occurred from 2004 until 2010, a longer period of time than investigated by the prosecution.
The documentation also appears to show that close relatives of Dragan “Palma” Markovic, leader of the United Serbia political party, have been renting out equipment to Kolubara since 2009 through Daka, a company is registered to Markovic’s daughter in law.
Registered at the same address as Daka is another company, “ATP Palma,” owned by Markovic’s son. The Markovic family has been trading in coal for decades through Daka. Nebojsa Ceran, the general director of Kolubara, confirmed to B92 that ATP Palma is on the list of Kolubara’s customers.
Prosecutor Mirko Radisavljevic told B92 news Wednesday that the investigation into the Kolubara affair is completed, and that there was not enough evidence to indict Markovic.
In February last year, B92 aired its findings on Kolubara in its “Insajder” (Insider) series. Following the program, anonymous death notices for B92 and Insiderr journalists appeared all over Lazarevac.
