Several dozen members of organized criminal groups accused of murders, preparations for liquidations or international drug smuggling could be released from custody in the coming months, if the Podgorica High Court does not make a first-instance decision in 31 cases, some of which have been pending for more than two years before the specialized panel.
Among those who could leave the cells of the Spu Investigation Prison are the members of the criminal group accused of the murder of Miloš Šaković and the accidental victim Radivoj Jovanović, accused of the murder of Goran Lenac, as well as all the detained members of the Škaljara and Kavača criminal groups, for whom the indictments were confirmed on various grounds. until the end of 2019.
Article 179 of the Law on Criminal Procedure stipulates that, after the submission of the indictment to the court, until the end of the main trial, custody may, in the opinion obtained by the state prosecutor, when the proceedings are conducted on his charge, be determined or terminated only by the decision of the panel and that from the filing of the indictment to of the first-instance verdict, custody can last for a maximum of three years.
An interlocutor from the security sector told Vijesti that investigators suspect that there is a deliberate blockade of the judicial system, aided by the coronavirus pandemic and the retirement of a number of judges.
"The hearings were first postponed due to the coronavirus, then, after the retirement of the judges, the special councils received many more cases. In such conditions, the hearings started to be postponed again, mainly because one of the participants in the proceedings did not appear, but instead reported symptoms of Covid-19, or announced testing", claimed the interlocutor of Vijesti.
The High Court in Podgorica did not respond to the questions of how many cases are pending before the specialized department of the High Court in Podgorica and in how many of them a first-instance decision has not been made for more than two years and six months after the confirmation of the indictment.
The question of why hearings in these cases are most often postponed also remained unanswered.
On the last working day of last year, the Judicial Council replied that the judges of the High Court have 31 such cases.
"The investigation through PRIS established that 31 criminal cases older than two years are pending before the special department of the High Court in Podgorica. There are no pending special cases before the High Court in Bijelo Polje, because the specialized department of this court stopped working in 2015", writes in the answer signed by adviser for public relations and international cooperation Radmila Đurišić.
One of the interlocutors from the top of the Police Administration assessed that, with the release of suspects for serious crimes, Montenegro would once again become the scene of mafia confrontations.
"The state must not allow such a scenario, but it is obvious that the accused have taken that path, because in the event that a verdict is passed, they are threatened with long-term imprisonment, thus, they are released from custody after three years, because according to the law, they cannot be in custody any longer if it is not first-instance judgment passed. After that, the question is whether we will ever be able to return them to the Penitentiary. "The only possibility for them to remain in detention, even for those against whom the Special State Prosecutor's Office is conducting other investigations, is to ask for detention in good time," he said.
Indictments
Miloš Šaković from Podgorica, allegedly close to the Kavačac criminal clan, and accidental victim Radivoje Jovanović were killed on March 31, 2018 in the center of Podgorica, in front of numerous witnesses who were sitting in the garden of the Forum bar that day. On the same day, not far from the scene of the crime, the police found a gun and a cap that the murder suspect had thrown away while fleeing.
Soon, a nineteen-member criminal group was suspected of that crime, and at the end of the same year, an indictment was filed against them. According to the collected evidence, the fugitive Marko Jovanović is the direct executor of the liquidation, and the indictment includes the brothers Janko and Predrag Vukadinović, Dragoljub Ćetković, Kristina Brnović, Lidija Bulatović, Tomo Orović, Đurađ Lončar, Miloš Božović, Arnel Mandić, Radoš Popović, Lazar Raičević, Balša Todorović, Željko Đukić, Drago Vukčević, Marko Rnković, Filip Sekulić and minor AD
The trial, which was supposed to begin in February 2019, was first postponed because the original chairwoman of the special panel sought to recuse herself from deciding on the plea agreement, and then it was postponed several times. The first-instance verdict has not yet been issued.
Goran Lenc from Kotor was killed on September 16, 2017, shortly after that the police suspected his fellow citizen Nikola Mršić, who had been on the run for a long time. The indictment for that murder was confirmed in May 2018, and a little later special prosecutors accused Mršić of being part of an organized criminal group that planned several liquidations, including the murders of chief special prosecutor Milivoj Katnić, several police officers and alleged members of the Kavačac clan.
The indictment includes the alleged organizers of three criminal groups who, according to the special prosecutors, cooperated - Ranko Radulović, Igor Vukotić and Erogen Brajović. In addition to them, the indictment includes Mršić, Nikola Mandić, Stefan Perović, Darko Vicković, Stefan Radulović, Luka Radulović, Zlatko Matanović, Nenad Lubura, Milovan Peruničić, Miladin Dedović, Ratko Martinović, Željko Matijašević, Radivoje Preradović, Željko Matijašević, Ivan Todorović. , Radoš Petrušić and Radulović's son, a minor at the time of the accusation, Ž. R.
In that case, the prosecution has a protected witness, codenamed Jadranko Jonski, who told the investigators in detail who were the targets of criminal groups from Nikšić, Kotor and Shkodër, who they followed, whose murders they planned...
Allegedly, they were preparing the liquidation of Milivoj Katnić, Duško Golubović, Zoran Lazović, Duško Koprivica and his son Strahinja, Nikola and Vladimir Banićević, Darko Janjić, Radovan Mujović, Vjekoslav Lambulić and the Vilotijević brothers.
Precisely because the first-instance verdict was not handed down within three years from the confirmation of the indictment, the detention of the last, alleged members of that criminal group who were in custody - Ranko Radulović, Nikola Mandić and Stefan Perović - was terminated at the end of November.
Radulović and Perović were then transferred to the Penal Correctional Center to serve the sentence to which they were sentenced on another basis.
Bonus video:
