Djukanovic Faces Investigating Judge in Telecom Affair

Milo Djukanovic, the former president and prime minister of Montenegro, is due to be questioned before the investigating judge of the High Court in Podgorica over the 2005 privatization of Telekom Crne Gore. The Telekom affair, in which the longtime Montenegrin leader’s name has come up in connection with suspected bribery, is thus reopened in the neighboring country, after a legal dispute over the statute of limitations ended in favor of continuing the proceedings.

When is Milo Djukanovic’s questioning scheduled?

According to the Podgorica daily Pobjeda, as relayed by Radio-Television Niksic, Djukanovic is expected to be questioned on Monday, November 2. The portal RTPV and the daily Danas, citing RTCG, say only that it will happen this week. As of publication, there was no confirmation that the questioning had taken place.

Also summoned are his sister, the lawyer Ana Djukanovic, the businessman Veselin Barovic, former Telekom director Oleg Obradovic, and Damjan Hosta, who took part in the negotiations on the sale of minority shares. According to Pobjeda, they are scheduled for next week.

The questioning was proposed by Bojana Cirovic, the protector of the state’s property and legal interests, who took over the criminal prosecution on behalf of Montenegro. She wants the circumstances of the privatization examined further, along with the suspicion that bribes were disguised as payments under consultancy contracts.

How did the case reach court when prosecutors saw the statute of limitations?

The Network for the Affirmation of the NGO Sector (MANS) filed a criminal complaint on March 1, 2019, against Milo and Ana Djukanovic and several other people. In early August 2025 the Special State Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the complaint because the statute of limitations had absolutely expired, and the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office judged that decision correct and lawful.

The state’s protector then asked the High Court’s investigating judge to carry out evidentiary actions. The judge initially rejected her request, but the High Court’s criminal panel for matters outside trial took a different legal position on the statute of limitations for the offense of accepting a bribe, which allowed the proceedings to continue. The Supreme Court then dismissed as inadmissible the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office request for protection of legality, and it has not ruled on the guilt of anyone.

What is alleged in the Telekom affair, and what is known about the money?

Magyar Telekom, a member of the Deutsche Telekom group, bought the state’s 51.12 percent stake in 2005 for 114 million euros. In its complaint, MANS claims that millions of euros intended as bribes were paid out through allegedly fictitious consultancy contracts, and it raised the suspicion that Milo Djukanovic was among the recipients. That suspicion is only an allegation in the complaint, and no court has ruled on it.

In 2011 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought a case against three former Magyar Telekom executives, Elek Straub, Andras Balogh and Tamas Morvai. According to the SEC, about 7 million euros was used to bribe at least two Montenegrin officials and a female lawyer who was the sister of the then top government official. RTPV gives a figure of 7.3 million euros, paid through four sham consultancy contracts. The names of the Montenegrin officials do not appear in the publicly released documents of the American institutions.

In December 2011, Magyar Telekom and its majority owner Deutsche Telekom agreed to settlements with US authorities, with total obligations of about 95 million dollars. Those settlements did not establish individual criminal responsibility of Montenegrin officials.

For Ana Djukanovic, according to previously published documentation, a fee of 246,000 euros was contracted. She denies the allegations, says she received the money for legal work actually performed, and has sued media outlets that mentioned her in this context. Montenegrin prosecutors cooperated with American judicial authorities in 2015, and on November 19 of that year the then chief special prosecutor, Milivoje Katnic, said on the program “Nacisto” on Vijesti TV: “For now there is no reasonable suspicion that a criminal offense was committed.” He was speaking about lawyers’ contracts linked to Ana Djukanovic and Nikola Martinovic.

What does Miodrag Ivanovic say about the bid and the top-up for minority shareholders?

Miodrag Ivanovic, the former head of the company Monet, spoke to Pobjeda about the price and the course of the tender. In his words, Magyar Telekom’s bid was 15 to 16 million euros higher than the runner-up’s, and he argues it this way:

“Why would anyone pay a bribe if they had already offered 15 or 16 million more than the runner-up? What do they get out of it?”

Ivanovic also claims that after buying the state’s stake, Magyar Telekom wanted at least two thirds of the ownership but was not ready to pay more than 2.20 euros for the additional shares, while minority shareholders asked for 2.50 euros per share. The then government paid the difference of 30 cents per share from the budget. RTCG reports that this came to about three million euros in total, and Ivanovic estimates that between 2.7 and 2.8 million was spent. “The government decided to pay the difference of 30 cents. I would make such a decision today as well,” Ivanovic said.

On the question of the American documents he answers in the same vein: “The Americans never accused anyone from Montenegro by first and last name,” he told Pobjeda.

Obradovic and Ivanovic have already sat in the dock in a related case. The High Court in Podgorica acquitted them on February 13, 2025, in the matter of a contract with the London company Rawleigh Trading worth 2.3 million euros, and the Court of Appeal upheld that verdict on September 4, 2025. That verdict does not cover the privatization as a whole, so it says nothing about the outcome of the upcoming questioning.