Acting Director-General of the Police, Boštjan Lindav, has appointed an old acquaintance of Slovenian criminal proceedings that have never been concluded to the leading position of the National Bureau of Investigations – namely, he appointed Darko Muženič, who is being prosecuted by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office for criminal offences due to the alleged misuse of European funds.
Darko Muženič took over the position of Director of the National Bureau of Investigation on the 1st of June of 2019 already, during the term of the Šarec government, but on the 6th of May 2020, he was dismissed from the position in question and transferred to the police leadership, prior to which he was the Director of the Office of the Republic of Slovenia for the Prevention of Money Laundering.
Since being taken over by the Tatjana Bobnar-Boštjan Lindav team, the police have been extremely activistic when it comes to communication trends – just remember how they announced that the police water cannon will now be used “to help people” when they sent it to the Kras region, to help fight the extensive fires that raged there. And this time, they created an unlikely ode – they wrote that Muženič “is known to the foreign and domestic public for his professionalism and sovereign policy of leadership.”
Given that this is a person who is being investigated for a criminal offence by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Lindav’s decision is all the more difficult to understand.
A senior police officer accused of criminal offences
Let us remind you that the head of the Office for Money Laundering Prevention, Damjan Žugelj, filed a criminal complaint with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office against the (then-former) Director of the National Bureau of Investigation, Muženič, on suspicion of Muženič having misused 60 thousand euros of European funds. The four offences are allegedly related to Muženič’s misuse of European funds and acquisition of a material benefit of 60 thousand euros for a group of suspects through the abuse of a public tender, where, despite a formal tender, he entrusted the National Bureau of Investigation’s contract to the private company Mikografija d.o.o. Allegedly, they discovered this was his doing because of his handwriting.
Of course, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But still, this is such a delicate situation, and it should go without saying that not only should a candidate for the Director of such an important institution not be convicted of any crimes, but he should also not be the subject of any official proceedings where he is suspected of a crime.
He acted as a public representative of the transitional left
Muženič is one of those Slovenian experts in office who, like the former President of the Court of Audit, Tomaž Vesel – who, after leaving office, took a job with the tycoon Martin Odlazek – casts enormous doubt on his political impartiality and professional neutrality. During the term of the previous government, he behaved more like a representative of the then-emerging failed Constitutional Arch Coalition (meaning, the left-wing parties of the then-opposition) than an independent expert. After the start of the staged “masks and respirators” affair, he was a guest in the studio of the largest commercial television station in Slovenia, POP TV, where he commented on the infamous political operative Ivan Gale, saying that “Gale was extremely brave to come forward and draw attention to the alleged irregularities. In such cases, the police do not leave people to their own devices – instead, their safety is duly taken care of.”
Of course, Muženič could not judge whether Gale was telling the truth at first glance, so he should have taken a neutral position. But he acted as if Gale’s claims had already been proven to be true, and that is why the police would offer him protection. Later, it turned out that Gale was nothing more than a petty political figure, for whom the court ruled that he rightfully lost his job, and then he decided to venture to politics himself. But Muženič, like an amateur, showed his political bias way too obviously, which we, of course, knew about even before that.
Namely, when Muženič was still head of the Office for Money Laundering Prevention, the “NLB Iran Gate” affair of global proportion came to light, in which Slovenian bank officials, most likely with the knowledge of the management and politicians in power at the time, transferred money to Iranian extremist operatives based in Europe. At the time, the Commission of Inquiry, headed by Anže Logar, presented such overwhelming evidence of what was going on that it was only a matter of time before someone went to jail. But Muženič dismissed all the accusations and then – perhaps as a reward – became Director of the National Bureau of Investigation. The Ljubljana criminal underworld must have breathed a sigh of relief at that. As did the Ljubljana Mayor, Zoran Janković, against whom the National Bureau of Investigation is conducting a bunch of investigations that we all already know will never be properly concluded.
Andrej Žitnik
