Agents of two intelligence agencies - the Montenegrin National Security Agency (ANB) and the Serbian Security Information Agency (BIA), had a meeting in Podgorica, and soon after that the online publication "Udar" appeared, whose target was me, he claimed during a hearing in the Basic Court. Radovan Aleksic.
Testifying in the proceedings against the Ministry of Culture and Media due to untruths published on the "Udar" portal, he also emphasized that he had been a counterintelligence officer for almost four decades.
The "Udar" portal appeared on the eve of the 2020 parliamentary elections, and it ran a campaign against critics of the then government - journalists, politicians, civil activists, and citizens who were then labeled as collaborators of foreign services and enemies of the state.
A few days after the election, it was removed from the internet, while the YouTube channel still contains videos published during August 2020.
"I have been involved in counterintelligence work for 40 years, where I was employed in the Army from 1999 to 2006, and was the head of the Counterintelligence Service of the Army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) on the territory of Montenegro. In the intelligence sphere, I am recognized as someone who opposed all forms of abuse by the Security Service. During the period when I worked in Montenegro, I had disagreements with the then Security Service, and I am mentioning all of this today to explain the context why the Udar portal targeted me," said Aleksić.
In his statement before the court, Aleksić said that his appearance on that portal differs from others because his name appears more than ten times.
He also said that his pictures were not published on that portal, but that information from "Udar" was shared on social networks.
"After publishing false information from that portal on social networks - I received death threats and my residential address was published," Aleksić said.
On social media, they told me that I was responsible for mass graves in Kosovo, and I was portrayed as a person who maintains contact with the Security and Information Agency of Serbia.
"Everything that was said on the Udar portal is a lie and untruth, and an insidious intention to attribute an act of espionage to me. I have never in my life heard of Željko Bukilić and Stevan Ponoš, with whom I was brought into operational contact and who were given code names on that portal. This was intended to create the impression that the security service of a foreign state, Serbia, is expanding its influence in Montenegro," said Aleksić.
He also said that he has been in a decades-long misunderstanding with the ANB, and that the highlight of the campaign that the agency is waging against him is "the attempt to frame the murder of Predrag Šuković."
"The ANB was frustrated that it could not prove that I had tried to kill Šuković, and the Udar portal wanted to prepare a public opinion piece where I was portrayed as an enemy of the state. I received threats, and once an unknown man approached me, posing as a police officer, telling me that my life was in danger and that I should carry a weapon, and I knew that it was a provocation in order to put me in a situation to commit one of the crimes," Aleksić said at a hearing held two days ago.
He emphasized that when he was targeted by the Udar portal, proceedings were still underway against him in a case where he was accused of the attempted murder of Predrag Šuković.
Aleksić told Judge Arsenije Gatolin that the health of his family members was impaired after all these events, which resulted in his family moving to Belgrade in 2021. He said that only he has Serbian citizenship, while his wife and two children have Montenegrin citizenship.
"In this deliberate decades-long discrimination, I am discriminated against because of my excellence and knowledge, and because I have always opposed abuses in the service," Aleksić said.
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