The District Court in Ljubljana acquitted the Mayor of the City of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković, and his two sons, Damjan and Jure, of charges of allegedly failing to fulfil obligations of a financial nature in connection with the sale of the Mercator company shares. Zoran Janković, the visible face of the transitional left and the comradely capitalism, who has repeatedly come into conflict with justice, has previously already explained why he has never been sentenced in any of the court cases, in a show on the Croatian national television: he said that the reason for it is that he is an opponent of Janez Janša’s policies. And this, once again, calls into question the apoliticism, impartiality, and independence of Slovenian courts.
Prosecutor Blanka Žgajner, who has been assigned to several cases related to the Mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković, said in her indictment that the accused avoided paying capital gains tax in connection with the sale of Mercator, which Janković headed up until 2005. She also pointed out that Janković had not filed a capital gains tax return in 2007. The sale of 47 thousand shares supposedly earned him almost 689 thousand euros. Of that, he would have had to pay a little over 103 thousand euros in tax liabilities.
His two sons, Jure and Damjan, allegedly participated in the crime. The prosecution also claimed that the accused “rotated” as much as one billion tolars in some transactions, which is around 4.17 million euros of borrowed money. The money was leased from Factor bank by Electa Holding. The latter allegedly transferred the borrowed funds to the current Mayor of Ljubljana, who then transferred them to the company Electa Inženiring (Electa Engineering) as an interest-free loan. The latter then supposedly bought Mercator shares with Janković’s money as part of two deals.
The billion tolars were then re-rotated – namely, the money was transferred to Electa Holding as an interest-free loan. The latter then immediately transferred around 884 million former Slovenian tolars to Janković, which was supposed to be part of the purchase price for the company Electa Inženiring, and the current Mayor of Ljubljana then immediately transferred these funds back to Electa Holding as a loan. The latter then supposedly repaid the loan to Factor bank in three transfers. According to the prosecution, the shares in the company Electa Inženiring were supposedly “parked” there until 2006, followed by the sale of Deutsche Bank, which is in German Bank. Judge Mojca Kocjančič‘s verdict was quite rushed, as the trial took place in November 2021. Judge Mojca Kocjančič is the former wife of the prominent LDS politician and former Minister of Justice, Aleš Zalar.
Domen Mezeg
