Following numerous allegations of irregularities related to the election of Milan Brglez, the former Speaker of the National Assembly and current presidential candidate, to the position of President of the Slovenian Chess Federation, the Siol web portal already checked last year whether his pre-election promises were actually realised and at what stage the pre-trial proceedings being conducted by the Ljubljana State Prosecutor’s Office were at. Meanwhile, Brglez continues to claim that he did not make the funds conditional on his election.
Before Milan Brglez, a Member of the European Parliament from the Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD) became President of the Slovenian Chess Federation, according to media reports at the time, in the spring of 2019, at a general electoral assembly, he allegedly persuaded the delegated of chess clubs to vote for him by offering the sponsorship of the state-owned company Slovenian Railways, because his election was the condition for the signing of a four-year sponsorship contract between the Slovenian Chess Federation and Slovenian Railways in the amount of 200 thousand euros.
The candidates for the position of President of the Slovenian Chess Federation were Milan Brglez and Sašo Čačič. 67 delegates voted in the secret ballot. Milan Brglez received 42 votes, while Sašo Čačič received 25. The latter said at the time that he would withdraw from the race if the sponsorship contracts that were supposed to be signed for the next term of office excluded him as a possible president and were linked only to Brglez’s election – he was, of course, referring to Slovenian Railways, the Siol media outlet reports. Before the vote, Čačič also allegedly had a heated discussion with former Minister of the Interior and Secretary-General of Drnovšek’s government, Mirko Bandelj, who was the then-Vice-President of the Chess Federation, as he wanted to keep Čačič in the leadership, but in the end, nothing came of it.
Brglez’s pre-trial proceedings ended up in the hands of the Ljubljana Public Prosecutor’s Office Initially, Brglez’s alleged conditioning was being investigated by the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (Komisija za preprečevanje korupcije – KPK), but it later handed over the case to the Ljubljana Prosecutor’s Office after finding that it did not have jurisdiction to work on this case, as it did not involve irregularities or a violation of the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act, but rather an alleged crime on the part of those involved. The police took over the case and, in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data, cannot give answers related to specific individuals while the investigation is still ongoing, but according to Siol, they said that Brglez’s pre-trial proceedings are now in the hands of the Ljubljana Public Prosecutor’s Office. We asked them whether or not the case had reached an epilogue already, whereupon we also received an explanation.
The criminal complaint was dismissed, as Brglez’s name was not mentioned in any of the announcements “In regards to your question, I would like to inform you that the records of the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office in Ljubljana show that in the case concerning the Slovenian Chess Federation about which you are inquiring, we have received documents from the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption dated 31st of December 2020, an e-mail from a natural person dated 24th of December 2020, and a letter from the Inspectorate for Education and Sport dated 17th of May 2020. These documents, together with the report of the Criminal Police Division of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ljubljana Police Administration, were considered by the competent prosecutor as criminal charges against one person for the offence of fraudulent inducement to obtain and use a loan or benefit under Article 230, paragraph 2, of the Criminal Code (KZ-1) and against a suspected legal person for the offence of fraudulent inducement to obtain and use a loan or benefit from it under Article 230, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code (KZ-1). None of the above-mentioned announcements referred to the person about whom you are making enquiries which means that we have not conducted any pre-trial proceedings against that person. The criminal complaint was dismissed by decision of the 8th of August 2022 on the grounds that there was no reasonable suspicion that the natural person had committed the reported offence and, consequently, the legal person was not criminally liable for the offence,” we were told by the State Prosecutor’s Office in Ljubljana.
And even though Brglez said during a recent pre-election debate that he had no involvement in the negotiation and conclusion of the sponsorship contract, as the sponsorship contract was concluded before he became the President of the Slovenian Chess Federation, after Brglez’s election, the Federation received three times more sponsorship money. Namely, Siol reported that Nina Rob, the Secretary-General of the Chess Federation, confirmed that before Brglez’s election, the Federation received significantly less sponsorship money (6 thousand euros in 2015, 20 thousand euros in 2016, 15 thousand euros in 2017, 21 thousand euros in 2018), but that after his election, the funds tripled. Thus, the Slovenian Chess Federation received 74,555 euros in 2019, 61,938 euros in 2020, and 70,000 euros in revenue were planned for 2021.
The sponsorship contract was concluded two days before Brglez’s election According to the Secretary-General of the Slovenian Chess Federation, from 2018 to last year, they received a total of 190,330 euros in sponsorship funding. Of these, 125 thousand euros were from Slovenian Railways, and interestingly, the sponsorship contract between Slovenian Railways and the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was signed on the 18th of March 2019, just two days before Brglez’s election to the presidency. “The contract is concluded for a period of four years, from the 1st of April 2019 to the 31st of March 2023,” Slovenian Railways said, according to Siol.
Tanja Brkić
