Two former prosecutors in Podgorica said they had been pressured to release from detention two police officers suspected of failing to comply with a traveling ban on alleged Serbian organized crime gang figures Veljko Belivuk and Marko Miljkovic.
Boricic and Radonjic said they had been pressured by their superiors to release the two police officers.
On 14 October 2021, the Basic Prosecution in Podgorica detained two police officers, Aleksandar Boskovic and Sasa Djurovic, for permitting Belivuk and Miljkovic entry into Montenegro. After questioning, however, the Special State Prosecutor said police officers had not abused their authority, and approved their release.
When questioned on Tuesday by government and prosecution officials at the Parliamentary Committee for the Political System and Judiciary, however, Radonjic said that the head of the Higher Prosecutor, Lepa Medenica, and the then-interim Supreme State Prosecutor Drazen Buric had pressured to release the two officers.
“Medenica called me around midnight and asked me to let the policemen go, claiming I was acting illegally. When I refused, the interim Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office urged me to submit the case to the Special State Prosecution,” Radonjic told officials.
“Later I found that the Special State Prosecution dropped the charges,” he continued.
Boricic, the then-head of the Basic Prosecution in Podgorica, also said he had been pressured to release the officers.
“I refused their request to take the case from Radonjic. Because of that incident, at the end of 2021, I was dismissed by an act of the head of the Higher State Prosecutor’s Office,” he said.
Montenegro’s outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic said the decision to lift the entry ban on Belivuk and Miljkovic was handled by two former high-ranking police officers, Zoran Lazovic and Enis Bakovic.
Abazovic said a special police unit, under Lazovic’s direction, had been providing security for Miljkovic and Belivuk during their visit to Montenegro.
“The ban was lifted so Belivuk and Miljkovic could attend a party organized by one of the Kavac gang leaders, Radoje Zvicer,” Abazovic said, Police officer Petar Lazovic was also at the party, while his police unit was securing the house.”
Belivuk was eventually arrested in Serbia in February 2021, one week after his return from Montenegro. Police allegedly prevented his assassination during that trip.
Belivuk, known as “Velja Nevolja” (Velja the Trouble), Belivuk allegedly led a notorious gang known as the “Janjicari” (Janissaries). The gang was later renamed Principi.
Formed in 2013, the group had connections to private security contractors and Montenegrin officials, including a senior police adviser and the secretary-general of the former government.
Image via Pixabay
