Belgrade Mayor Failed to Declare Villa Bought in Trieste

Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic has failed to report to Serbia's Agency for the Prevention of Corruption a villa he bought in 2018 in Trieste, which he was obliged to do by law, BIRN can reveal. The villa is located in Opicina, some five kilometres from Trieste city centre.

According to Italian cadastre data, Sapic owns four properties in this location. One is a 13-room villa covering 387 square meters. A second is a 127-square-meter garage/utility room. A third is an access road whose ownership he shares with another owner. The fourth is the forest that surrounds the house with a total area of almost 6,200 square meters of which he is part-owner. Sapic owns 4.35 per cent of the forest along with 30 other co-owners.

According to documents that BIRN has obtained, Sapic signed a sales contract for a villa with Marta Prioglio on May 30, 2018. He bought the real estate for 820,000 euros, paying 735,000 for the villa and 85,000 for the garage.

When Sapic bought the villa in 2018 he was president of the New Belgrade municipality in the capital. He was elected Belgrade's mayor in June 2022, after the Serbian Progressive Party, SNS - whose list he was leading - won a majority of votes in local elections.

While Sapic's ownership of the villa is visible in the Italian cadastre as seen by BIRN, it is not listed in the property and income register of the Serbian Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, to which public officials are required to report all changes in their property status.

According to BIRN's findings, in his last report from July 2022, after he was elected mayor of Belgrade, Sapic reported ownership of two items of real estate, one of 150 square meters and the other of 98 square metres.

Sapic did not answer BIRN's...