The trial of them and other defendants indicted for organized crime continued today at the Higher Court in Podgorica, with the listening to of telephone conversations between Slobodan Kašćelan and Igor Božović.
In the evidentiary proceedings before the special panel presided over by Judge Radovan Vlaović, the secret surveillance measures (SSM) from 2016 under which the accused were held were also used as evidence today.
According to the indictment filed in 2016, Slobodan Kašćelan and Igor Božović, at the end of May 2010, organized a criminal group whose members engaged in drug smuggling, extortion, usury, money laundering, and bribery.
The indictment also includes Vladimir Božović, Miloš Radonjić, Siniša Vlahović, Aleksandar Đurišić, Igor Đurišić, Davor Prelević, Stefan Brnović, Aleksandra Bogdanović, Đerđ Camaj, Zlatko Samardzić and Ilija Dedović. The prosecution believes that Kašćelan and Božović were responsible for planning the crimes, giving orders to members of the organization and providing money. It is alleged that they also participated in the commission of some of the crimes.
During the listening of the telephone conversations, it was possible to hear how an unidentified person called Igor Božović. In that conversation, Božović said:
"I'll call a meeting. Fuck them... They're killing innocent guys there... Who should I call a meeting with? I said don't fight with each other. I live honestly, I have my own family... I told the kid to stay away from crime, I advised him as I would my own son. What should I have said: 'Take it and shoot innocent people'. I told the guy what I thought in a human way - don't go into those shops, because you haven't gone into that yet. He should responsibly say to stop... they had my number, they should have given a statement why... they're using force. There's no point. I'm talking to you on the phone, the whole of Montenegro is listening to this. I'm the only one who came to help him. I told the kid not to go into some shops. I taught him like a son. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. I talked to him in a human way so that people don't rob people, don't burn down bars, discos, don't shoot innocent people... They killed a guy who he needed ten euros to earn, he has two small unprotected children, they don't have anything, tenants..." Božović said in one of the overheard conversations.
At the end of that conversation, in which Božović spoke to an unidentified person about the murder that had occurred, in which, as he claims, an innocent man was killed, Božović said: "They are driving around in armored vehicles and shooting at unprotected people, so brother, who can get back at them?"
Among the intercepted conversations is a conversation that the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) claims was conducted between Slobodan Kašćelan and an unidentified person (Robert). The indictment states that in this conversation, the unidentified person asks Kašćelan for a loan.
An unidentified person says he needs a "financial injection", "to support him with 500 to 700.000 euros". Slobodan Kašćelan asks who has that today.
"I have serious assets...one of my companies is in crisis, my other companies are functioning. I can do it with 300 thousand, but why when I can get out of it like a gentleman with 500, 600, I'm okay afterwards, I have no debts... You have a strategic partner, you never know who might need it," says the unidentified person.
"Take it easy, my Robert," replies the Kašćelan.
The defense assessed that these conversations showed that Kašćelan was conducting informal, semi-joking conversations.
"The prosecutors did not realize that these were humorous conversations, a mockery, I hope the court will understand that," said Kašćelan.
Special State Prosecutor Vukas Radonjić had a different assessment.
"For any average person, whether they are a prosecutor or not, it cannot be a joke, a mockery, an informal conversation when someone calls a defendant who is not employed anywhere and has no income, and then asks him for an 'injection, infusion' of 700.000 euros," the prosecutor pointed out.
Bonus video:
