Miloš Marović will serve his sentence under house arrest in Serbia?

Despite the international warrant for the convicted Budva citizen Miloš Marović and the message of the Montenegrin Minister of Justice Zoran Pažin that he will not allow abuses in this case, there is a high probability that the son of the former high-ranking DPS official Svetozar Marović will serve 11 months in prison instead of the Spuška prison with nanoleg in his home in Belgrade.

His defense refers to the Treaty on Extradition of Own Citizens between Serbia and Montenegro, which stipulates that only those sentenced to at least 2 years in prison can be extradited to another country.

The expectations of the Minister of Justice are one thing, and Miloš Marović from Budva, who, despite the warrant issued, received Serbian citizenship with the sole intention of avoiding serving a one-year prison sentence due to embezzlement during the resale of municipal land in the town of Prijevor above the Jaz, is more demanding.

However, Marović's lawyer points out that the Montenegrin Ministry of Justice has not yet officially taken a position on his client's issue, so their request that Marović serve his sentence in Serbia has not been officially rejected.

"Two months ago, as soon as the verdict became final, we submitted a request to the Ministry of Justice of Montenegro, since he is a citizen of the Republic of Serbia, to serve the sentence in Serbia according to the verdict of the High Court in Podgorica. In the meantime, we received a notification from the minister in which stated that the request will be acted upon only if the Ministry of Justice of Serbia addresses the Ministry of Justice of Montenegro and, of course, nothing after such notification. We submitted a request to the Ministry of Justice of Serbia for an initiative so that my client could eventually serve a prison sentence in Serbia." said Zdravko Begović, attorney for the accused Marović.

While the ministries are dealing with correspondence, in the end, Begović is convinced, they will decide what is written in the Treaty on the extradition of their own citizens. According to him, the younger Marović cannot be extradited to Montenegrin authorities.

"The extradition of one's own citizens for the purpose of execution of a legally imposed prison sentence or a measure involving deprivation of liberty shall be permitted if the conditions prescribed by this contract are met only for criminal offenses from paragraph 1 of this article and if the imposed prison sentence or measure involving deprivation of liberty, i.e. the rest thereof to be carried out, amounts to at least two years," the extradition agreement reads.

As the younger Marović still has 11 months left, it can only be concluded that he made a good mockery of the Montenegrin competent authorities. And can we expect the same request from his father Svetozar?

"I don't have any information about it, I doubt it except for media speculation. I talk to Svetozar Marović almost every day and there was no mention of him possibly seeking Serbian statehood," said Begović.

Let us remind you that what Begović calls speculation turned out to be true in the end, starting with the fact that his clients are not so seriously ill that they would not be able to serve the sentences to which they were sentenced. It is also speculated that Svetozar Marović will be treated until a foreign embassy decides on his request for asylum. Unlike the two of them, Dragan Marović, who the public speculated was the victim of his brother and nephew in the Budva embezzlements, went without delay to serve his sentence.