The pre-trial chamber of the Higher Court in Podgorica has confirmed the indictment against Petar Lazović, an officer of the National Security Agency (ANB), for the kidnapping and torture of Goran Brajović after he was arrested in the summer of 2020 at the border between Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) together with two Colombian citizens whom he was supposed to transport to Podgorica, Vijesti has learned.
Brajović and Colombian citizens Aleksandar Costana Caso Jose and Caicedo Bandoy Juan Davido were convicted by a final verdict of membership in a criminal organization formed to commit an unspecified number of serious crimes.
Brajović and David Kaisedo were sentenced to two and a half years in prison each, while Aleksandar Kostana was sentenced to three years in prison.
According to an earlier report by Vijesti, from conversations between Petar Lazović and Radoje Zvicer and former colleague Ljubo Milović, which were recorded via the Sky app, the Colombians entered Montenegro to kill someone from the "Grand" team - the then assistant director of the Police Directorate for Combating Crime, Zoran Lazović, or the owners of the "Bemax" company, Ranko Ubović and Aco Mijajlović.
Sky Communications concludes that the Colombians were arrested based on a tip from Radoje Zvicer, who provided the police with information "that two butchers had entered the country."
Lazović was arrested on July 18, 2022, and in early 2023, an indictment was filed against him on suspicion that, as an ANB officer temporarily assigned to the Police Service for Combating Organized Crime (SBPOK), he worked for people from the criminal milieu.
The indictment also includes fugitive police officer Ljubo Milović, Radoje Zvicer, Slobodan Kašćelan, Radoje Živković, Nikola Spasojević, Milan Vujotić, Duško Roganović, Radovan Mujović, Radovan Pantović and Nikša Perović.
This criminal organization, as stated in the indictment, was formed in the second half of 2020 and, in addition to Montenegro, operated in South America, Africa, Europe, and Australia.
The defendants are charged with several serious crimes, such as serious murders, attempted murders, smuggling of drugs, weapons and cigarettes, as well as abuse of office.
Everyone remembers me.
Defendant Petar Lazović stated at the Higher Court in Podgorica during the indictment review in mid-April that he was not guilty of the kidnapping of Goran Brajović.
He added that three years after he was detained, people who were previously processed by the police only remember him, as if he had acted alone.
"This is best explained by the folk saying - 'the frog saw the horses being shod, so it also raised its legs'. I did none of the things I am accused of. It seems that it has become a practice that I am accused of everything that happens in Montenegro, that I am to blame for the arrests, torture, kidnappings," Lazović said at the hearing for the review of the indictment.
His defense attorney, Nikola Martinović, said at the time that this indictment was unfounded and that there was no evidence in it for the charges against Petar Lazović.
"There is no evidence that unequivocally confirms the circumstances that Petar Lazović was in Nikšić on the day in question, let alone that he had contact with the injured party," Martinović stated at the time.
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