A new investigation has revealed that Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic failed to report a villa purchase made in 2018 to Serbia’s Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
The villa purchase was made in Opicina, approximately five kilometers from Trieste city center.
According to local data, Sapic owns four entities on the property. One entity is a 13-room villa covering 387 square meters, and the second is a 127-square-meter garage and utility room. The third asset is an access road with shared ownership, and the fourth is the surrounding forest covering a total area of nearly 6,200 square meters.
Sapic owns 4.35 per cent of the property’s surrounding forest, along with 30 other co-owners.
According to documents obtained by investigators, Sapic signed the sales contract for the villa with Marta Prioglio on 30 May 2018. He purchased the property for 820,000 euros, including 735,000 for the villa and 85,000 for the garage.
At the time of the villa purchase in 2018, Sapic was president of the New Belgrade municipality in Belgrade. He was then elected mayor of Belgrade in June 2022 after his party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), won the majority in local elections.
While the fact that Sapic owns the Opicina villa is publicly available information in the Italian cadastre accessed by journalists, the property is not listed in the property and income register of the Serbian Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
Public officials are required to report all changes to their property status in the property and income register under Serbian law.
According to this latest investigation, Sapic’s latest report from July 2022, after he was elected mayor of Belgrade, reported Sapic’s ownership of two real estate assets. The first is 150 square meters, and the second is 98 square meters.
At the time of the report’s publication, Sapic had not answered journalists’ requests for comment.
The first report of Sapic’s purchase of the villa is 22 January 2019, at which time Sapic reported a number of real estate holdings, including a 380-square-meter building.
Sapic is a former water polo player, and a former member of the Democratic Party. His political success initially grew from his popularity as a sports player, but also from his position as head of the New Belgrade municipality. He was elected mayor twice there, once in 2012 and other 2016.
In the 2018 Belgrade elections, he ran as an independent candidate and won 9 percent of the votes.
Image via Wikimedia
