The President of the Assembly of Serbia, Ana Brnabić, called a session of the Parliament for November 4, the agenda of which will include the lex specialis for General Staff, regardless of what is in The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK) is conducting an investigation on the abuse of official position in making a decision on the termination of the status of cultural property of the buildings of the General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense in Belgrade.
Ana Brnabić obviously believes that it is more important to ensure the conditions on the basis of which the company of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, will be able to demolish the General Staff complex and build a hotel and towers instead, than to find out the truth about who is involved in making the decision to deprive the General Staff of its status as a cultural property, and to restore that status to this landmark.
Enrichment of government
On Tuesday, MPs will discuss the Bill on special procedures for the realization of the project of revitalization and development of the location in Belgrade between Kneza Miloša, Masarikova, Birčaninova and Resavska streets.
That proposal, as stated in the invitation to the session, was submitted by 110 deputies in the National Assembly.
The lex specialis is being passed under an urgent procedure, in order to continue the "enormous enrichment in the last phase of the exercise of power", the president of the New DSS, Miloš Jovanović, said today.
The law that abolishes the guilty
The Assembly of Serbia is not authorized to grant or revoke the protection status of an immovable property, but it is authorized to pass laws - which it will do on Tuesday.
It will be a law that corresponds to the authorities, passed despite the opposition of the local and foreign professions, and the public. The law that allows the demolition of a cultural monument.
"The law passed by the Parliament abolishes everything that the Government of Serbia has done illegally. Because when you have a law on something, you no longer need any decision from the Government," said Srđan Milivojević, president of the Democratic Party. "Time" before the previous session Assembly, when he announced to the public what fate awaited the General Staff.
This means that the mentioned TOK investigation will no longer make sense. Because it won't matter that last November the Government of Serbia made a decision to revoke the status of a cultural monument to the General Staff, and therefore the grounds for prosecuting the people who falsified documents so that the Government could do what it did, disappear.
Somehow, right before this November session of the Assembly, it was announced that TOK had expanded the list of suspects in the investigation, so that the Acting Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Slavica Jelača, was on it. She was heard for the first time in this investigation at the beginning of September as a witness, and for the second time this week, but as a suspect. On that occasion, she confessed to the suspected actions.
Before Jelača, and the suspected directors of the Institute, the republican – Goran Vasic and Belgrade - Aleksandar Ivanovic also admitted the actions they are accused of.
And what about Mali and Selaković?
In early October, MP Vladimir Jelić asked the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime to file indictments and issue an arrest warrant for Minister of Finance Sinisa Malo and Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković for the "General Staff" affair.
Jelić then stated that the published documents show that this affair is more serious than initially thought.
According to him, by forming a joint venture, the highest government officials had a personal financial benefit in donating the demolished General Staff building - a symbol of resistance to NATO aggression and a protected cultural asset - to the son-in-law of the President of the United States of America, in order to build a hotel and casino on that site.
"Every new day reveals some new affair of the current government, and the closest associates of Aleksandar Vučić are always at the top of corruption scandals, especially those who were in power before him, such as Sinisa Malog and Goran Vesić, whom their current boss once called 'yellow scum,'" Jelić said at the time.
He called on the competent institutions to act according to the law and show that the judiciary in Serbia can be independent and resistant to political pressure.
The Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia (POKS) has asked the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime to file charges and issue an arrest warrant for Finance Minister Sinisa Malo and Nikola Selaković for what they say is the "General Staff" scandal.
The public believes that ministers Mali and Selaković and others in the chain of responsibility should be heard.
By bringing the lex specialis, all that becomes irrelevant, and the demolition can begin.
