THE high-profile Predrag Djordjevic v Popular Bank trial was adjourned yesterday after a key witness was unable to show up in court.
Djordjevic, a Serbian businessman, is suing the directors of the bank for damages. He claims that the organisation illegally held his money in an account, and as a result of his inability to have access to the funds, he missed out on a number of business contracts.
In 1994, at the height of the Bosnian war, Djordjevic attempted to ship cotton into Yugoslavia with a United Nations permit.
Djordjevic claims his Bulgarian trade partner deposited about £180,000 in Deutschmarks into his company account in Belgrade, and that the money was supposed to be transferred to Beogradska Banka in Cyprus.
However, the transfer was mysteriously blocked.
After a long legal wrangle with Beogradska, Djordjevic found his money had been moved into an account with the Popular Bank.
A company he had never heard of, Antexol Trade Ltd, controlled the account
When the accounts were examined in court, Djordjevic discovered about $300,000 had been transferred to Antexol’s Popular Bank account, which bore the same number as his account with Beogradska.
Djordjevic, who finally received his money too late to save his cotton deal, then decided to take legal action against the Popular Bank and Antexol Trade Ltd.
But in a twist, just before a hearing in November 2004, Djordjevic’s lawyers, Christos Clerides and Soteris Drakos, were informed that Antexol Ltd had been struck off the company registrar’s record in August of the same year as a defunct company.
Clerides claimed that no one had informed him about this and his side had been misled, but Antexol’s lawyers insisted that notification had been given in time.
Drakos later confirmed that they were considering filing lawsuits against the directors of Antexol Ltd, which was registered by Tassos Papadopoulos’ law office, as well as the directors of Laiki.
However, the current litigation concerns only the Popular Bank.
Drakos told the Mail yesterday that his team had asked for and secured an adjournment because their key witness had been unable to arrive on the island on time due to “technical difficulties”.
The witness is Vladan Batic, a Serbian opposition leader and former Justice Minister. It is understood that he will be substantiating Djordjevic’s claims with background information on the siphoning of money from the former Yugoslavia to offshore companies in Cyprus during the civil war in that country.
The case is being closely monitored by observers trying to untangle the web of Serbian money laundering activities during the Balkan wars, with Antexol one of several companies named in a report by The Hague war crimes tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte in 2001.
It is the second time Batic’s testimony has been postponed. Last month, he came to Cyprus to testify, only for the hearing to be adjourned when it turned out the translator was not up to scratch.
Drakos said the only activity taking place in court yesterday were “formalities”, such as the submitting of Antexol’s accounts from 1994 onwards.
A Nicosia district court set a new date of June 6 for the hearing.
