Alleged members of the police drug cartel, Petar Lazović and Ljubo Milović, said that they could not spend money just to confirm the first-instance verdict in the coup d'état case, by which, among other things, the two then opposition leaders were sentenced to five years in prison.
This is stated, among other things, in the transcripts from the encrypted Sky application that Europol provided to the Montenegrin investigators.
From the messages they exchanged on January 18, 2021 and after the first-instance verdict was annulled on February 5 of the same year, it can be seen that they expected a different outcome.
The decision of the Appellate Court to annul the first-instance verdict also angered the recent president of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, who commented with a swear word...
From the transcripts of the intercepted messages provided to the Montenegrin investigators by the European Union Agency for Cooperation in Law Enforcement (EUROPOL), it follows that the decision in that procedure was negotiated in Kotor instead of in the Court of Appeal.
According to those files, which Vijesti has access to, Petar Lazović, who uses the nickname Junior on Skaj, called Milović officir on January 18 to meet and go to training. After the policeman, now a fugitive, replied that he was not there and that he was sleeping in Tivat, Lazović informed him that "everything is OK".
"Everything is finished in Kotor"...
They continue their correspondence only the next day, when Lazović writes:
"To squeeze around the coup d'état. There is no limit for Piletićka money".
“Yes, yes, great. Where are you? I was with D., I said we would need it. He says he's cool with him. They are connected in various ways," replied Milović right after that.
Lazović then explains to Milović that he went to see his father:
"I came here to see my dad, and only after that, always something for them. Let him squeeze it. Tell him to handle it. They both take money. Let him squeeze that," repeats Lazović.
His father, Zoran Lazović, was then the assistant director of the Police Administration, for the most important Sector for the Fight against Organized Crime and Corruption (SBPOKK).
Seka Piletić is a judge of the Appellate Court and was a member of the panel that overturned the first-instance verdict against the accused in the "coup d'état" case.
That panel was chaired by judge Zoran Smolović, and in addition to Piletić, Milenka Žižić was also a member.
On February 5, 2021, they announced the decision - to return the case to a new trial before another panel.
"They cancel the verdict," Lazović sent to Milović on the same day.
That policeman and a member of the Kavaka criminal clan answers that he was told the day before that he would not be able to do otherwise.
"Yes, D. told me yesterday that there is no chance. The husband said that they are not immune to money, but that he cannot do it," writes Milović.
"Jbg. Vesna should be thanked. An old, disgusting bitch," answered the police officer at the time.
The judges of the Appellate Court in the decision by which they annulled the first-instance verdict stated that "in the procedure of its adoption and in the verdict itself, significant violations of the provisions of the criminal procedure were committed, and because of which neither the factual nor the legal conclusions in the first-instance verdict could be accepted, both in relation to the existence of the criminal acts for which the accused were declared guilty, as well as in relation to the existence of their guilt for those acts"...
Explaining their decision, they wrote that because of this, they could not even examine with certainty the legality of the decision by which the leaders of the former Democratic Front, Russian and Serbian citizens, were convicted for attempted terrorism on October 16, 2016.
They noted numerous shortcomings of the first-instance decision, including the fact that there is no evidence, as judged by Judge Mugoša's panel, that weapons were bought and thrown into Lake Gazivode.
"The first-instance court's conclusion that a decisive fact in the form of the acquisition of weapons and ammunition, which according to a criminal plan should have been brought into Montenegro and used in an attack on the police and citizens, can be reliably deduced from the testimony of the witness Mirko Velimirović is wrong," is just one of the numerous objections of judges of the Court of Appeal.
They stated that the court panel changed the factual part of the indictment for the leaders of the then DF, Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević, entering a different date in the verdict than the one stated by the special prosecutor.
With the annulled verdict, the current President of the Parliament of Montenegro Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević were sentenced to five years in prison each for, as the indictment states, membership in a criminal organization since February 2016. The organizers of that group - Russians Eduard Šišmakov and Vladimir Popov - were sentenced to a total of 27 years in prison.
The former commander of the Serbian Gendarmerie Bratislav Dikić was sentenced to a single sentence of eight years, and his compatriots Predrag Bogićević and Nemanja Ristić to seven years in prison.
By the same decision, Serbian citizens Srboljub Đorđević and Milan Dušić were sentenced to one and a half years in prison, Branka Milić to three years in prison, Dragan Maksić to one year and nine months in prison, while Kristina Hristić was given a suspended sentence.
DF driver Mihailo Čađenović was sentenced to one year and six months in prison.
The indictment states that the two Russians organized a criminal group and recruited other members for the purpose of gaining illegal profits and power, violently overthrowing the government and declaring the electoral victory of the then Democratic Front and preventing Montenegro from joining the NATO alliance.
The criminal organization, it is stated, planned to clash with the Montenegrin police on the day of the parliamentary elections on October 16, 2016, with the help of the Democratic Front, and forcibly occupy the Parliament of Montenegro, as well as to kidnap and kill the then Prime Minister Milo Đukanović.
Medenica: "I'm a Chetnik mother"
After the head of the cabinet, Mirjana Bobičić, sent her a link to a text from a portal on February 5, 2021, which announced that the Court of Appeal had annulled the verdict for the coup d'état, the former president of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, replied to her: "I know, their mother *em Chetnik".
He gets a short answer from his former colleague: "Catastrophe"...
It is only a part of the correspondence from the phone of the long-time first lady of the Montenegrin judiciary, which was confiscated after she was arrested on April 14, 2022 on charges of being part of a criminal group formed by her son Miloš Medenica.
On the penultimate day of 2020, Medenica resigned from the position of President of the Supreme Court.
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