Former senior MUP official "did not accept bribe"

Former senior MUP official "did not accept bribe"

BELGRADE -- A task force of the Interior Ministry (MUP) has not found any evidence to corroborate the claims of Darko Šarić that Rodoljub Milović took a EUR 1.25mn bribe.

Šarić, currently on trial on charges of smuggling tons of cocaine from Latin America, said he had indirect knowledge about the now former head of the MUP Criminal Investigations Department receiving bribes from Dragan Dudić.

Dudić was assassinated in 2010, and Milović allegedly took the money "to make sure Dudić was in a favorable position in the proceedings launched after the 2009 discovery of cocaine smuggling."

However, while checking Šarić’s claims, the task force found a link between two monetary transactions conducted in March 2008 that totaled EUR 7,200,000.

After receiving a relevant report from the task force, the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime launched a preliminary investigation on suspicion that the two were money laundering transactions, the statement says.

The prosecutor’s office demanded from that the police to find out who arranged and carried out the transactions, and to collect relevant information.

When it comes to the bribe, during the trial, Šarić first spoke about “General Papaj (Papaya),” but later his story brought criminal police chief Milović to the fore. He said that Milović had received the bribe through an intermediary he called “Mango," and that he had therefore rigged the whole process against him.

Šarić is on trial for organizing the smuggling of 5.7 tons of cocaine from Latin America to Western Europe, and for laundering EUR 22 million in Serbia.

After the accusations against...