A criminal case was established against Samardžić

Special State Prosecutor's Office, led by the Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović, formed a criminal case against the former Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Montenegro, a retired admiral Dragan Samardzic, because of his possible role in war crimes against the civilian population committed in autumn 1991 in Dalmatia.

"After the text published on the 'Vijesti' portal under the title 'Split shelling and the role of Dragan Samardzic', the Special State Prosecutor's Office, on that occasion, ex officio, formed a criminal case to establish the existence of grounds for suspicion that criminal acts of war crimes had been committed. The case has been assigned to a special prosecutor who, according to the annual work schedule, is assigned to work on these cases", it was confirmed to "Vijesta" yesterday from the Office of the Supreme State Prosecutor Maje Jovanovic.

According to the current Montenegrin laws, the criminal offense of war crimes does not become statute-barred, so there is a basis for prosecutors and investigators today to deal with what Samardžić did as an officer of the Yugoslav Navy 31 years ago in Dalmatia.

The Government of Montenegro did not want to comment in more detail on the information pointing to the controversial war past of the former long-time Chief of the General Staff of the Gora Army, retired admiral Dragan Samardžić.

"Thank you for the submitted question. Bearing in mind that the same is not within the competence of the Government of Montenegro, as you know, the Government did not even consider it", it was announced to "Vijesti" yesterday from the Public Relations Bureau of the Government, which was asked by Vijesti for the official position and comment regarding the fact that a high-ranking Montenegrin officer was once an actor in events that in Croatia are officially legally treated as a war crime against the civilian population, i.e. that Samardžić at one time waged war against and disparagingly commented on NATO, although later years later he propagated the Alliance and officially represented Montenegro in the headquarters of NATO in Brussels.

From the Bureau of Public Relations of the Government of Montenegro, it was announced that, "with a request for understanding, and respecting the presumption of innocence in this case and in any other case, the Government cannot comment on the allegations, which do not represent the decisions of the competent institutions".

On Sunday, "Vijesti" published an article about Samardžić's role as an officer of the then Yugoslav Navy in the attack by Tactical Group "Kaštela" on targets in the city of Split and the surrounding area, on November 15, 1991. Warships in the TG "Kaštela", among which was also the missile gunboat RTOP - 406 under the command of frigate lieutenant Dragan Samardžić at the time, in retaliation for the Croatian forces hitting and severely damaging the patrol boat PČ-176 with an improvised torpedo the night before, which killed three members of the JRM, in the early morning hours of the 15 In November 1991, they attacked and shelled targets in Split and on nearby islands.

Then JRM ships also hit numerous civilian objects, killing two civilians, injuring five and wounding one member of the Croatian armed forces, and great material damage was caused to civilian and cultural-historical objects in Split.

Because of this, 31 members of the JRM were prosecuted before the Croatian courts (most of them in absentia because they were inaccessible to the Croatian courts) and in 1993 they were sentenced to long prison sentences.

Among them were several commanders and other crew members of warships from TG "Kaštela" because of their attack on Split. However, the name of Dragan Samardžić was not found among those prosecuted, and the Croatian authorities officially, according to publicly available lists of suspects for war crimes in that country, never investigated him because he was the commander of RTOP-406, working in Dalmatia in the fall of 1991.

By the way, "Vijesti" invited retired admiral Dragan Samardžić and offered him to answer our questions regarding his role in the attack of JRM ships on Split on November 15, 1991. He resolutely refused to do so.

"I don't want to answer any of your questions," Samardžić pointed out, although only a day earlier on Twitter he called out the "Vijesti" journalist and announced that he was ready to publish everything about all the controversial aspects of his career and service, especially in the last 15 year.

"Vijesti" also expects the answers of the Ministry of Defense on this topic, as well as the position of the minister Raško Konjevića (SDP), from whom we asked to confirm or deny the unofficial information that last months Samardžić hired Maltene as his permanent, unofficial advisor.

"Vijesti" is waiting for the requested official position and comment of the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Podgorica on this topic, because there are indications that apart from November 15, 1991 in Split, Samardžić was already an actor earlier - in September of that year with the warship he commanded combat events in Šibenik, when many civilian targets and objects in that Dalmatian city were also hit by artillery shells in addition to military ones from the JRM vessel.

"The sky is hot, we warmed their wings"

"Vijesti" recently also announced that Samardžič, as the captain of a battleship of the Navy of the Yugoslav Army, commanded a group of two missile gunboats that opened fire on fighter planes in May 1999 during the NATO bombing of the FRY, tied to the operational coast of the Port of Bar. of NATO that flew over Bar, even though those aircraft were out of range of the 57mm Bofors guns that those ships are armed with.

We also published the records of the actors of those events, which say that the future Montenegrin representative to NATO in Brussels, Dragan Samardžić, then, in May 1999, gave a statement to the VJ military press in which, among other things, he said that the NATO pilots were "our the artillerymen caused a lot of problems, the sky was hot, we heated their wings, that some of them even tried their parachutes".