Against a criminal organization allegedly formed by a businessman Aleksandar Mijajlovic An investigation is also underway for the readiness for violence. and intimidation and their application to achieve the organization's goals, including against Željko Ivanović, the president of the board of directors of the company that publishes "Vijesti", is stated in the order for the Special State Prosecutor's Office to conduct an investigation.
Special prosecutors Miroslav Turković, Ivana Petrusić Vukasevic i Jovan Vukotic, who signed the order, also suspect that he is an alleged member of a criminal organization, Predrag Boskovic, while he was at the head of the defense department, influenced the voting rights of employees in his companies through Mijajlović, and also took money from him for the 2020 elections.
After they learned from the media about the announcement that the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, on the last day of October 2020, he was a guest on Television Vijesti, Mijajlović and the then mayor of Podgorica exchanged several messages Ivan Vukovic.
The businessman sends Vuković a message with the following content: "Vučić guest on TV Vijesti at 22 p.m.", to which Vuković replies: "I heard."
After that, as it is written in the files of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, Mijajlović sent Vuković a message: "This is a crazy idiot", after which Vuković replied: "We need to skin Željko Ivanović."
To that message, Mijajlović replies: "That's right."
Due to this and a number of other messages, which are listed in the order for the investigation, prosecutors claim that the criminal organization organized by Mijajlović is prepared to use violence and intimidation.
“It just takes them one at a time”
The prosecution's claims, as stated in the files, also stem from a communication dated June 24, 2020 between Mijajlović and a former police official. Dear Spičanović, when the two comment on the turbulent events surrounding the change of local government in Budva.
"Petar for training, and Pejovic "There is information that in the Budva Municipal Council hall... what a little scumbag... we'll beat him to death," Spičanović writes in a message to Mijajlović.
The businessman reportedly replies: "Džukele... And did you call him names?", after which Spičanović sends several messages: "Yes, asked there in front of the cameras" ... "Is your son in the building?" Zoran Lazović"... "He's going to get hurt."
The communication was continued by Mijajlović, who suggested violent methods: “It just takes them one by one,” and the then assistant director of the UP continued: “Yes, yes, I just said that.” Zoran This will pass easily... And they will pay us... I swear to you... Let them touch us and mention us... But the families... I will kill them". In response to a series of messages, Mijajlović briefly writes: "That's right".
Mijajlović and Spičanović were placed in custody in Skopje on Sunday evening, following a decision by the investigating judge of the Higher Court in Podgorica. Goran Šćepanović.
Mijajlović is charged with the suspicion that from 2018 to February 2024, he allegedly created a network of media and bot profiles in order to deal with dissenters, that his criminal organization influenced the political and executive authorities, the media and other important economic and social factors, obtained secret data from state officials... in order to gain illegal profit and power for himself and the criminal organization.
Spičanović is accused of abusing his official position and sending intelligence and secret information to the head of a criminal organization for years.
The SDT investigation includes the former chief of Podgorica police Milovan Pavićević and a UP officer Vladan Lazović, on suspicion of revealing official secrets and abuse of official position, and they were ordered to be placed under house arrest.
SDT suspects that the prosecutor was also a member of the criminal clan Andrijana Nastic, by which court decision His passport was confiscated and he is obliged to report to the police.
During the processions, Spičanović often sent Mijajlović, who is not a civil servant, summary data on the number of people who attended the rallies, including individual figures by city.
In the messages they exchanged on July 20, 2020, Spičanović sent a message to Mijajlović: "We will not give them the state, we will definitely fire a volley at the Litijaši people when I see this."
Recommendations for more aggressive action were also sent by Mijajlović to Spičanović on October 1, 2020.
"They should call CT to get them out," after which, as stated in the SDT files, Spičanović sent messages: "Have P call Milovan."
To that, Mijajlović replied: "He called."
Half a year later, on March 13, 2021, Spičanović sends messages to Mijajlović and mentions the shooting again: "Yesterday I swear to you on everything... If I didn't want to shoot at their cars, because it's a humiliation that we allowed... them to ride us into their country."
"50 volunteers ready to break it"
The prosecution's files also mention messages sent by Mijajlović and Spičanović a few days after August 30, when the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists lost power after three decades, in which they say that several men in the Bar police were mistreated.
Spičanović, on September 4, 2020, sends messages to Mijajlović: “The one who Tanja washed... I told you Klisić... And I sent you the picture... He will get it... Tell me Lazarus... If it's already over, just let this quiet down a bit. I got 50 volunteers to break it... This little piece of shit is him."
To these messages, Mijajlović replies: "Ok ok... Miloš Pechurica, Nebojša Kasalica, Vanja Petric, Strahinja Djordjevic... He got these names too”, and the defendant Drago Spičanović replies: “I know everything, I'm telling you... Strahinja... He already got a slap in the face... Me too Magovčević... He called out something, Pečurica got the same... Damir slapped him... Kasalica and Petrić... When Klisić also... They got it.
The two, as the documents state, then exchange several personal qualifications about the people they mention.
In this part of the explanation of the Order, the SDT also mentions the message exchanged between Aleksandar Mijajlović and the prosecutor on December 24, 2021. Andrijana Nastić.
Mijajlović writes: "Someone will cut his hair, that long hair. They will pay for it... And for this and for everything else they are pushing on us about Mitrović."
"Therefore, it follows from the content of the quoted communications that the criminal organization used violence in its activities, since in this particular case the defendant Spičanović Drago, as a member of the criminal organization, informed the organizer about persons who had been 'beaten up' in the Bar Security Center during the conduct of official actions, i.e. that the organizer and individual members of the organization were ready to use violence in order to achieve the goals of the criminal organization," the order states.
Bošković and Mijajlović canvassed voters
Special prosecutors suspect that former DPS official Predrag Bošković, while he was Minister of Defense, collected personal and political affiliation data of employees of the companies "Bemax" and "Genex" and their family members registered on the voter lists in the territory of the Municipality of Berane and delivered them to Mijajlović, in order to influence their voting rights.
"For the purpose of influencing the criminal organization on the exercise or non-exercise of the voting rights of these persons"...
He is also accused of "taking other actions on the orders" of Mijajlović ahead of the 2020 parliamentary elections, and of taking money from him during the same period...
Bošković was detained for up to 72 hours yesterday after being questioned by the Special State Prosecutor's Office. "Vijesti" learned that he completely denied committing the criminal offense he is charged with before prosecutors Turković and Petrušić Vukašević, that he presented his defense and did not answer the prosecution's questions.
His detention was ordered due to the risk of flight and repetition of the criminal offense, because another case is being conducted against him before the same prosecutor's office for abuse of official position, said the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
The order listed hundreds of messages that allegedly show Bošković and Mijajlović colluding to influence voters, as well as the manner in which this was done, including the conditionality of losing jobs and business with Mijajlović's company Bemaks. "Vijesti" substituted the voters' initials for their names.
At the end of June of that year, Bošković, according to correspondence, asked Mijajlović to "turn around" a Genex employee who supported the lithium...
“He sends messages to the accused Mijajlović: 'MV Works at Genex, Can we turn him around. He votes for Dragosavac - Berane Police ... He's going to the parade', and the accused Aleksandar Mijajlović sends messages: 'I'm checking .... If he's ours, he's going home if he doesn't turn around'"...
In a message dated July 31, 2020, Bošković asks Mijajlović for verification of "Bemax-Genex Berane"...
Mijajlović replies to the messages: 'They're going to be checked... These are Titans, apparently. Only M. Š. is employed at Hidroenergija... The others are not at Genex... They're all Goran's employees... Should I send it to him?'"...
Prosecutors claim that Bošković told him that he didn't have to, because he had arranged a meeting with Goran...
On the sixth of August, Bošković sent Mijajlović a list containing the names of four Berane residents employed by the Genex company, with the message "...Not to vote in the elections. Berane", to which Mijajlović replied: "Ok!!! ... They won't, don't worry"...
On August 9, 2020, Bošković wrote to Mijajlović: "Minister, let me first greet you, ML works at BEMAKS and is not ours, if possible she should not come out", and the defendant Mijajlović replied: "She won't, don't worry... Let's not fall for that, she will come out and vote for us? It's better for her to stay home". However, two days later Mijajlović contacted me with new information and sent Bošković: "Vesko tells me that he GUARANTEES for L. That she is ours".
At the end of the correspondence, Bošković allegedly asked Mijajlović to take a picture of the ballot and send it to ML.
"From all the aforementioned communications, the conclusion follows that all members of the criminal organization and the organizer acted with the same goal and together," the prosecutors state.
“...On August 26, 2020, defendant Aleksandar Mijajlović sent a message to defendant Predrag Bošković: 'Here is Golubović Teko with us. He swears in the last 2 elections that he and his family voted for DPS. He was SNP before. He will send a list of all his employees tomorrow with his voting preferences. He cannot guarantee everything 100%, but he has already underlined to them that if there is no vote for Bemax (DPS), there is no Teko either. He says that he does 80% of his business with us and he told me that there is no chance that he will lose that business with us”...
Three days later and the day before the election on August 30, 2020, Mijajlović sent a message to Bošković indicating that they planned to prevent those they were unsure of from voting:
"Let me know if anyone from Bemax/Genex has a work obligation tomorrow... Beran village Š. D. father, Š. Ž. son, will not be going out."
Prosecutors are also facing alleged agreements about who "should not" vote in the local elections in Nikšić in March 2021, that is, for whom Bošković asked Mijajlović to order them to "stay home"...
“Should I send it to Belo or should I deliver it to you sometime this afternoon?”
The messages between Mijajlović and Bošković on the eve of the 2020 parliamentary elections also discuss money.
Nine days before the election, Bošković sent Mijajlović a message: "I'll need that!!!", to which he was replied: "When? How much?"...
After Mijajlović replied that he could do it in the afternoon, as soon as he ran away from home, he asked the minister, "Do you want 50 or more?"...
Bošković replied "100", after which they agreed on how he would take it over.
""Ok ... Should I send it to Belo or should I give it to you sometime in the afternoon? ... Or I can send R. and go to his place for coffee .... Just let me know what's easiest for you," Mijajlović wrote to him, after which he received messages from Bošković: "Don't go out so that no one sees you. Send Belo to come to me anytime after 14 p.m."...
After the agreement, Mijajlović wrote to Bošković that he would give Belom "Čobi's number, to wait for him downstairs"...
Two days later, prosecutors claim, Bošković sent Mijajlović a message: "I need 120 by Tuesday. I'll pay you back when this is over," to which he was replied with "OK"...
On election day, Mijajlović asked Bošković in a message: "Do you need anything?" and received the following response: "Nothing... I took it from M. and from Kom. And covered everything"...
Vuković: I meant serious public criticism, I apologized to Ivanovic
After being introduced to the correspondence in the order, Vuković told "Vijesti" that with his "inappropriate and rude expression" in the message, the authenticity of which he cannot confirm, he thought that Ivanović "should have suffered serious public criticism" due to Vučić's guest appearance on TV Vijesti.
"Yesterday, I received information that Aleksandar Mijajlović's phone contained a message from me from exactly five years ago, concerning Aleksandar Vučić's guest appearance on Television Vijesti, in which, allegedly using inappropriate and harsh language, I expressed the view that Željko Ivanović should suffer serious public criticism for it," said Vuković.
"Since, after my recent deportation from Belgrade, I was forced to change the phone number I had been using until then, I am unable to confirm the authenticity of the aforementioned message. Regardless, I thought and still think the worst about the idea of a denier of Montenegro being a guest of the most influential media outlet in the country, just a few months after the political changes in August 2020, which will mark the beginning of a coordinated attack on the most important achievements of Montenegro's modern political development," said Vuković.
He also assessed that "the latest attempts by official Belgrade to influence the change in the editorial policy of 'Vijesti', through a change in the ownership structure, testify to the correctness of such a position. So, do I still think that Mr. Ivanovic deserves the harshest public criticism for the aforementioned decision, the kind with which he often characterizes dissenters in his political columns, including, in dozens of texts, my own little one, I think?"
"However, in case my position was not adequately formulated at the time, I have apologized to Mr. Ivanović, whom I have known since the time when I myself, as a student, worked at 'Vijesti'. I would like to remind you that, at the time the alleged communication refers to, and even several years after that, Mr. Mijajlović was not a subject of interest to state authorities, nor, to my knowledge, was he politically active," he said.
He said that, if he is invited to express his position to the competent authority, he will certainly do so.
Ivanovic: It's sad that the professor uses the vocabulary of the Kavač clan
Ivanovic told "Vijesti" that he is saddened by a society in which a university professor, in communication with a "member of the underworld", discusses social and media processes, "using the vocabulary of the Kavač clan".
"When I received information about the correspondence between the suspect in the creation of a criminal group and the mayor of the capital, I was not surprised, nor taken aback, nor frightened in the least. I was only saddened by the realization that I would spend my entire life in a society where someone, say an excellent university professor, discusses or defines social and media processes with a member of the underworld, using in that communication, he, and not this suspected head of the OKG, the vocabulary of the Kavač clan," said Ivanović.
He said that he was even more saddened when he concluded that politician Vuković "is not alone in such thinking and narrative, because there is almost no politician on the public scene in Montenegro who would not 'skin' me and Vijesti."
"That was the foundation of the government's media strategy until 2020 and beyond. I'm not even sure that Ivan Vuković is alone in such thinking at the University, among professors. It was only when I asked myself how many professors at the University of Montenegro agree with Vuković that I and "Vijesti" should be skinned, that I concluded that not only mine but also the generations that will come after us will have to deal with the sick system of values that the war, crime and mafia-ridden 90s brought to these regions."
He said that "I wish Professor Ivan, the former mayor, all the best in life, that he may earn his tenure and rise to professor emeritus, that he may earn Podgorica's respect and be its mayor again, so that I don't need to apologize for anything, I have no expectations or demands from him."
"May Montenegro be eternal."
Bonus video:
