Not a single police officer has been charged even a year and a half after reports of abuse were filed Jovan Grujičić, Marko Boljevic i Benjamin Mugoša in the investigation of the bombings of the Grand bar and the house Duško Golubović.
This was announced by the NGO Action for Human Rights (HRA), emphasizing that no investigations had been opened in those cases, and that on January 21 they sent a letter of protest to the Acting Supreme State Prosecutor. Dražen Burić and acting head of the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica Armin Selmanović:
"Indicating that such delays constitute an ineffective investigation and violate the international standard against torture."
"In the cases of both Grujičić and Boljević, the last suspects were heard in October 2021, but despite this, both cases are still in the investigation phase, which allows suspects for serious violations of human rights to continue to perform their official duties, which makes the absolute ban completely meaningless torture and inhumane and degrading treatment", HRA claims.
They add that Grujicic was legally acquitted of the charges for the bombings, because the court, among other things, assessed that his confession was coerced by police torture.
"The director of the hospital, Petar Abramović was finally convicted after admitting that he had given false testimony at Grujicic's trial. The verdict established that on May 25, 5, masked police officers took Grujičić to CB Podgorica from his office in order to collect information. This was done without the written consent of the doctor that the patient could be examined by the state prosecutor, but the consent was given retroactively - the day after Grujičić was subjected to torture", the HRA announced.
Citing the omissions of the prosecutors who acted in the cases, the HRA also announced that Grujičić's parents, with the support of the NGO Juventas, filed a complaint in September 2020 with the Commission for Ethical Issues and Deontology of the Medical Chamber of Montenegro against the actions of the doctors and management of the Special Hospital for Psychiatry. but for almost 16 months they have not received any response.
"Grujičić and Boljević reported police torture, using electric shocks in the genital area and thighs, beating with boxing gloves and baseball bats, threats to kill and playing loud music to drown out screams, back in May and June 2020. Although the names of 11 police officers who were in charge of Jovan Grujičić in CB Podgorica were known immediately after his arrest, thanks to the efficient actions of the Council for Citizen Control of Police Work, no one has been charged to date, which indicates the ineffectiveness of the prosecution in this case. . The identification of the five inspectors, out of the reported six, who treated Marko Boljević, was unjustifiably waited for as long as 13 months," the HRA points out.
They remind that on November 20 last year, in an opinion in which he found inhumane and humiliating treatment of Boljević, the ombudsman sent a recommendation to the Police Directorate to immediately take measures to identify and determine the responsibility of all police officers who on May 25, 2020 exceeded their powers in relation to him.
"The investigation of these cases had to receive special attention, and to be carried out promptly, timely and as thoroughly as possible, because the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) in the previous two reports on visits to Montenegro warned of abuse by the Montenegrin police with the use of electronic shocks, as well as the fact that the use of abuse is an accepted practice among criminal inspectors. Also, in the last report, the CPT pointed to 'non-standard items' - baseball bats and electric cables, which it found in CB Podgorica, which was also mentioned on this occasion as the location where the victims were tortured. However, photographic evidence from the premises of CB Podgorica was collected in the case of Jovan Grujičić only on October 5, i.e. after more than 4 months, which seriously affects the availability of relevant evidence", the HRA announced.
They add that as early as July 2020, there was great interest in the case from the domestic and international public and that official representatives of the agencies of the United Nations, the European Union, the British Embassy and the US Embassy demanded from the authorities an urgent and thorough investigation and the implementation of justice.
"Since this has not been done to date, the HRA once again expresses its serious protest that in these cases, even after 18 months, all responsible police officers for the abuse of the three victims, including those who were superior to the immediate perpetrators and who concealed the abuse all the time, have not been prosecuted ".
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