At the main trial before the High Court in Belgrade, according to the lawsuit Aleksandar Šapić filed against journalists and editors BIRNProsecutor Aleksandar Šapić and BIRN journalists were heard - second accused Jelena Veljković and third accused Aleksandar Đorđević.
"A year and a half ago, a text was published on BIRN's website, in which it was stated that I did not report the property I own to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and that I tried to break the law by doing so." After that, all the living began to convey (the news) and a kind of affair was created. After that, a good part of the opposition took over and they started calling me a thief," said Šapić in front of judge Violeta Marjanović. writes BIRN.
In March of last year, Šapić sued the editor-in-chief of BIRN, Milorad Ivanović, the authors of the text, Jelena Veljković and Aleksander Đorđević, and BIRN Serbia, for the article "Šapić's villa in Trieste: The mayor of Belgrade did not register a house worth 820.000 euros", claiming that untruths stated in the text and asked to be paid six million dinars for mental pain.
Full journalistic attention
The co-author of the text, BIRN journalist Jelena Veljković, said that what BIRN published in the text is pure truth, that the journalists worked on the text for a month and entrusted the text with absolutely full journalistic attention, and that they addressed the competent institutions and the prosecutor Šapić, who did not respond to calls and questions.
At today's main hearing, information was released to the public that since February 2019, the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) has been conducting an extraordinary review of Šapić's submitted reports on assets and income, related to his assets in the Italian city of Trieste.
The Agency informed the High Court in Belgrade about this check in a letter.
Contrary to this information, which was only revealed in court, when in January 2023, a text was published on the BIRN website about Šapić's property in Trieste - a villa of almost 400 square meters, with an attached garage, part of the forest and an access road - the Agency for the Prevention of of corruption announced that after the BIRN text was published, the "procedure of an extraordinary check of the submitted reports on assets and income" began, although at that moment the procedure had already lasted for three and a half years. per year.
The data is still on the website of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption
According to the letter sent from the Agency to the High Court, Šapić reported to the Agency in January 2019 that "in 2018, he bought a two-story apartment with an area of 150 m2" in the municipality of Opičina in Trieste.
This information - that Šapić owns an apartment of 150 square meters - is still available on the Agency's website.
After Šapić registered an apartment of 2019 square meters in January 150 - and not a villa of 400 square meters, plus 270 square meters of forest and 134 square meters of garage - in February 2019, the Agency asked Šapić to submit the amount of the purchase price, as well as the contract itself. On March 12, 2019, Šapić submitted the statement, together with the sales contract in Italian, without a translation into Serbian.
According to this letter, the Agency is still "acquiring data and information" and doing "analysis of the collected information", although the case was started back in 2019.
Šapić: The property form was filled out by the secretary
At the hearing, Aleksandar Šapić repeated the claims made in the lawsuit - that BIRN published a lie.
"The bottom line is that it is a notorious lie, because I not only reported, but also submitted the sales contract to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, which is not the obligation of the person who submits the report." Due to some other circumstances, they were looking for some other things, but due to a combination of circumstances, they got my sales contract, which is the identity card of every object," said Šapić and emphasized that "the text was published in BIRN with the clear intention of discrediting me on the worst possible way, when you tell someone they are a thief, especially in my profession, that's why I filed a lawsuit".
He said that the form - in which it was stated that it was a 150-square-meter apartment, not a 400-square-meter villa - was filled out by his secretary, and he only signed it.
After the defendant's lawyer asked Šapić how it was that in the previous property declaration to the Agency, he properly "separated the real estate into a house, office space, garage, swimming pool, with the area expressed in decimals", Šapić replied that this was also filled in by the secretary, and that it is about the application from the time when he entered the public office.
"I have to admit I feel like I'm talking to a form filling expert." BIRN should have written that, so that the illiterate Šapić could not fill out the form. It is not a criminal offense, and what they have accused me of is a serious charge of concealing assets, for not fulfilling my legal obligation," Šapić told the defendant's lawyer.
BIRN journalists: The truth cannot hurt honor and reputation
Jelena Veljković, who is the co-author of the text about Šapić's villa in Trieste, explained that "in order for something to hurt honor and reputation, what was published must be untrue, and what BIRN published in the text is true."
She described all the steps journalists took to publish accurate and verified information.
"We had an extract from the Italian real estate cadastre from May 2018, we checked in the land registers for the city of Trieste, we received an identical extract, only in English, for a total of four immovable properties in the part of Trieste called Opicina. From the same department, we also received a sales contract, which showed that it was concluded in May 2018 for 820 euros. We hired an authorized translator for the Italian language who translated the contract, we established contact with a lawyer who is an expert in real estate, as well as with Italian colleagues from the newspaper 'Il Piccolo'. They checked on the field and came across the gate, on which, among other things, there was a plate with the surname Šapić", Veljković explained what BIRN journalists did during the creation of the text.
As Veljković said, the Agency sent a letter to BIRN stating that all reports on the assets of Aleksandar Šapić have been reported and processed, as well as that they are visible on the Agency's website.
"In an interview on TV Prva, Šapić said that he registered 150 square meters, and that he 'didn't know that he had to register everything.' There is no real estate of 150m2 in the sales contract. Also, in an interview on TV Prva and today at the trial, Šapić said that 'due to a combination of circumstances' he submitted the sales contract to the Agency, but the ASK wrote in a letter to the Court that it initiated the procedure of extraordinary control of the accuracy of the report back in February 2019 - from that letter it is he sees that Šapić submitted an incomplete report and concealed the fact that KAS initiated the procedure in 2019," said Veljković.
If the property is not declared - you have not acted in accordance with the law
Šapić's lawyer, Dragan Nikolić, asked Veljković who determined that the prosecutor had broken the law, the BIRN journalist said that no authority had determined that, but if the property was not declared, it means that you did not act in accordance with the law, adding that the media did not they publish only the decisions made by state institutions, but that the media are controllers and they themselves find loopholes and investigate.
To the third defendant, Aleksandar Đorđević, Mayor Šapić asked the question "was this false information, that I did not report the villa in Trieste, delivered by one of your (BIRN's) permanent associates, not to mention a financier, a stocky man with crooked legs and a big head?" ".
Đorđević replied that both prosecutor Šapić and his lawyer show "an absolute misunderstanding of how the media work, which may not be surprising for a lawyer, but for an official it is surprising and dangerous for society", adding that the BIRN source of information does not match the description. , and that journalists are not even obliged to say who the source is.
The next main hearing is scheduled for January 23 next year.
