09. 05. 2002

KARIC INVESTING IN KARIC

BELGRADE, May 9, 2002 - A preliminary investigation by Yugoslav and British authorities shows that Global Media Investments, the company which has recently become a strategic partner of the Karic family's BK Telecom mobile communications company, was established with Karic money. Radio B92 learnt from sources in the Serbian government that the investigation had revealed that the company was founded using money withdrawn by Bogoljub and Sreten Karic from their personal bank accounts in a private Irish bank. Global Media Investments was founded on April 8, 2002, a few days before the signing of the partnership agreement with BK Telekom. The London-based company has not been registered and has not appointed directors. Under the strategic partnership agreement, Global Media Investments is to invest some fifty million dollars in BK Telekom. Radio B92 contacted the president of the BK Group, Bogoljub Karic, who agreed to give a statement providing that it was carried in full. Karic's full statement is as follows: "The short and simple answer is that this is a complete untruth, that these sources do not exist and that you are probably inventing these sources because you are widely known as a company which deals constantly with certain sources, known and unknown, and the people of Serbia know very well what you do. "Therefore I shall repeat again, and I hope that you will not cut this, as you often do, that the company was founded for strategic partnership in programs such as "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and other programs which are being produced. This is not about any sale or purchase of companies. This is about investment in this country and in BK Telekom". Because Karic did not address all Radio B92's information, the question remains of whether or not Global Media Investments was established on April 8 with his money. "It is not true that the company was founded using our own money: the company was founded by a British partner, and I repeat, for the purpose of infesting in programs and projects. The company was founded for new projects we shall undertake in this region. "That is therefore the only truth. Neither billions, nor millions, nor hundreds of thousands of Deutschmarks have been invested, this is about companies set up with five hundred or a thousand pounds, and that is the value of the company. Everything else is funds provided by the foreign partner, depending on the project in which money is being invested. Radio B92 is in possession of documents on the founding of Global Media Investments which support the claims of the sources.