Category: Money and deals
Period: from 2014
Outcome: Under investigation (as of 14 Oct 2015)
In 2015, the portal Teleprompter published what it said was a transcript of a wiretapped conversation between Bojan Pajtić and Lidija Udovički. In it, Pajtić said she had complained to him that Vučić's best man Nikola Petrović, director of Elektromreža Srbije, had demanded a two million euro payoff from her for a wind farm. Petrović denies this, and minister Nebojša Stefanović called the portal a “racketeering and bandit organisation”. The investigation never produced a public outcome, and in 2023 a court dismissed Petrović's lawsuit against Lidija Udovički.
In late September 2015, the Teleprompter portal, citing a source close to the security services, published the transcript of a phone conversation between Bojan Pajtić, then president of the Provincial Government and of the Democratic Party, and Lidija Udovički, sister of minister Kori Udovički. The conversation had taken place about a year and a half earlier.
Pajtić confirmed that the conversation was authentic and demanded that it be established who was wiretapping him. At a press conference he said, according to a later ruling, that Udovički had complained to him in a letter that Nikola Petrović, director of Elektromreža Srbije, had demanded a two million euro kickback from her. Petrović denies this, and the American company Continental Wind said it had never received a demand for money from him.
In 2013, the provincial secretariat issued a permit for the Čibuk 1 wind farm near Kovin, valued at €229.1 million, but the ministry challenged it in June 2014, and a new one was issued in July 2014. According to Vreme, EMS had sought to have the first permit challenged.
In March 2014, the company wrote to EMS that its letter to the province “banning” it from issuing the permit had halted the project. Petrović says EMS cannot ban anything and had merely pointed out irregularities.
On the same day, police minister Nebojša Stefanović said that the Interior Ministry and the BIA had not wiretapped Pajtić and that the story was „fabricated and made up“, and, according to Radio Free Europe, he called the portal a „racketeering and bandit organisation“. Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić called the affair „fabricated“, said the portal's editor was worse than the editor of „Tabloid“, and accused the American company and a minister's relative of wanting electricity at three times the market price.
Teleprompter editor Danilo Redžepović was questioned by the police, refused a polygraph test and did not reveal his source. According to journalist Vuk Cvijić, he was questioned by Dijana Hrkalović.
On 12 October 2015, police questioned Petrović, who also took a polygraph test, and on 19 October they questioned Pajtić, who says he handed over documents. According to Vreme, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade opened an investigation. Lidija Udovički was questioned in Spain and, according to media reports, said she had never met Petrović.
In 2021, Pajtić said he had never received an official account of the outcome from the authorities.
After the affair, Petrović sued Pajtić, who was acquitted at first instance in 2018, and Lidija Udovički, from whom he sought one million dinars. According to Mondo, the First Basic Court in Belgrade ruled in his favour in 2019, but according to Insajder, the same court in March 2023 dismissed the lawsuit as unfounded because there was no evidence that she had published the disputed claims. Over a single sentence about the affair, Petrović also sued the Peščanik portal and columnist Vesna Pešić in 2017.