Category: Above the law
Period: Feb 2019 – Jul 2020
Outcome: Under investigation (as of 14 Mar 2019)
The Hotel Šumadija in Belgrade, which Njegomir Kilibarda bought in a 2004 privatisation for €2.8 million, was sold at auction on 8 February 2019 for €280.000. A week later, according to BIRN, masked men smashed its entrance with axes and clubs. According to Kilibarda, the sale was preceded by meetings with Branko Stefanović, father of then police minister Nebojša Stefanović, who offered him money for the hotel; Branko Stefanović denied this. The minister said the investigation had not been dropped, but no indictment or verdict for the attack has been found in any source.
Njegomir Kilibarda bought the Šumadija Hotel in Banovo Brdo, Belgrade, in a 2004 privatisation for €2.8 million. Saddled with debt, the hotel was lost at auction on 8 February 2019, where the company B&B group bought it for €280,000.
A week later, on 15 February 2019 at around 20h, about fifteen masked men smashed the hotel's entrance with axes and clubs, according to BIRN. A representative of the buyer entered the hotel together with the police who had come to examine the scene, while Kilibarda, according to BIRN, sat frightened in the restaurant.
According to Kilibarda, the sale was preceded by three meetings with Branko Stefanović, father of then police minister Nebojša Stefanović, who offered him help with his debt in exchange for the hotel and brought a backpack to the last meeting that he said contained €300.000. Branko Stefanović confirmed the meetings and that they had discussed a loan and the hotel, but denied offering money and sued Kilibarda for damage to his reputation.
Kilibarda also claims that Aleksandar Papić, the minister's best man, later offered him money on the minister's behalf to keep quiet.
BIRN reported that police summoned Kilibarda for questioning about the attack, then cancelled it without explanation, and that the Interior Ministry did not answer questions about the investigation.
Minister Stefanović said the investigation had not been dropped, that police had established who broke down the door, that the hotel's new director was behind it and that a report had been sent to the prosecution. He declined to discuss his father's role. No source shows an indictment or verdict over the attack.
Branko Stefanović died on 6 July 2020; the outcome of his lawsuit against Kilibarda is not known. The same father also appears in the “Krušik” affair.
In July 2020 minister Stefanović sued the Nova.rs portal over an article about his father. In February 2022 the Court of Appeal in Belgrade upheld the ruling of the Higher Court in Belgrade in his case against the portal, which then published the operative part of the ruling.