Srbinovski for "Vijesti": The tentacles of the secret police must be cut off

Illegal wiretapping scandals have a bad effect on the country's image, and if they continue, Montenegro may remain in line for membership in the European Union for several decades, said journalist and representative of the Global Initiative for Organized Crime for North Macedonia Aleksandar Srbinovski.

He reminds that North Macedonia also had a case of illegal wiretapping and that now that the EU practically scans every detail of society, and even the smallest move of both Montenegro and North Macedonia, such incidents cause great damage to national interests.

"If these events continue, it is almost certain that we will be in line for EU membership for a few more decades, and that opens the door for other influences on the Balkans by major powers that do not think well of Europe," Srbinovski told "Vijesti".

He assessed that countries will remain in the so-called "limbo" state for a long time, without a real perspective, if the problem of illegal wiretapping is not solved.

He warns that economies would weaken, and crime would be the main force that would ravage the countries of the region.

"We certainly don't want that to become a reality, so I appeal to those in power to gather courage and cut off the tentacles of the octopus from the secret police and agencies and once and for all put the state on the right foundations, and thus clean the face of Montenegro and Macedonia in relations with our strategic partners - USA and EU", said Srbinovski.

The affair of illegal wiretapping, which has rocked Montenegro in recent days, is already receiving a judicial epilogue in North Macedonia.

Thus, on Friday, the former director of the Macedonian Security and Counterintelligence Directorate (UBK), Sašo Mijalkov, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for massive illegal wiretapping from 2008 to 2015 and the destruction of the equipment used to wiretapping.

The Criminal Court in Skopje, in one of the most important cases of the former Special Prosecutor's Office for the wiretapping of conversations called "Target-Fortress", convicted a total of 11 people, including the then Minister of the Interior Gordana Jankulovska, Macedonian media reported...

The Montenegrin Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT), headed by Milivoje Katnić, announced at a press conference on Thursday that the National Security Agency (ANB) wiretapped most of opposition leaders at the time, some journalists, but also the late Metropolitan of Montenegrin and Littoral Amfilohi Radović.

According to unofficial information, the current prime minister Zdravko Krivokapić, the leader of the Democrats and the current president of the Assembly Aleksa Bečić, the leaders of the Democratic Front Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević, the head of their caucus Slaven Radunović, the mayor of Budva Marko Bato Carević, MP Milo Božović were also on the monitoring list. (DF), leaders of the United Montenegro and the Socialist People's Party Goran Danilović and Vladimir Joković, MP Boris Bogdanović (Democrats), Democrat official and former journalist Nevenka Bošković Ćirović, as a reporter for TV "Vijesti" Petar Komnenić.

For this reason, the former director of the secret service, Dejan Peruničić, and the former head of the secret escort in that institution, Srđa Pavićević, are suspected of abuse of official position...

Srbinovski says that the events in Montenegro and Macedonia are not good for the image of the countries that are members of the NATO alliance and serious contenders for the upcoming membership in the EU.

"Namely, the decadence of national institutions and the weakening of state apparatuses contributed to the fact that in these two countries, certain centers of power formed their own parallel state, using non-democratic mechanisms available to them. People from these circles are clearly the main centers of corruption and destabilization because they illegally wiretapped most of the opposition leaders, some journalists, and even religious figures such as the head of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral. This is a situation that goes against everything that domestic institutions, including those in Brussels, stand for."

In GP URA, SNP and United Montenegro expect a timely reaction from the prosecution.

"The illegal recording and monitoring of several persons by ANB officers should not be a big surprise, bearing in mind that in the previous three decades, Montenegro was ruled by a hybrid, autocratic regime, born out of communism, in which exactly these methods originated, and as we see and continued to apply. In such a regime personified by the DPS, it is quite normal that the postulates of its functioning were illegal monitoring, eavesdropping, espionage, buying human souls and wanton attacks on critics of their regime", they told "Vijesti" from GP URA.

Even the UCG are not surprised to learn that ANB, on the directive of the former director and for the purpose of preserving the former regime, illegally wiretapped political leaders and prominent activists.

"We expected all these names that were on the watch list, but we are sure that the series does not end there, but we will find out who else was under 'special' treatment. It is very important to stress that, since UCG leader Goran Danilović is also on the list of those tapped, that we accept this information relaxedly, because Danilović and other officials of our party are ready to repeat every communication conducted by phone in public. And they spoke many times in official addresses, both personally and on behalf of our party".

The biggest inconvenience, they add, is the brazen violation of the privacy of friends, acquaintances and all interlocutors of the eavesdropped persons.

The SNP announced that this is another confirmation of their claims that until August 30 of last year we lived in a captive, private state, in which no one who thought differently from the former government was on the "radar" of the secret services.

The SD said that until the aforementioned case receives a final epilogue before the competent institutions, they do not want to comment on it in order not to contribute to the "politicization of a topic that is so serious that it should not be politicized."

Cut ties between the secret services and their political partners

Srbinovski says that it is a fact that the democratic capacity of Montenegrins and Macedonians is great, but that this does not correspond to criminal structures that tend to destroy the legal order due to personal interests.

"One of the key priorities of the ruling group of Macedonia and Montenegro should be to break the unhealthy relationship between people from the secret services and their political partners. This can best be achieved when reforms are introduced that will reduce the power of these agencies and transform their employees into true professionals similar to those operating within the NATO alliance.

Srbinovski adds that it is a very difficult process, which has been going on in Macedonia for almost 30 years, and the results are still minimal and not enough to reflect the democratic capacity of the country. According to the indictment, eavesdropping directly or indirectly covered about 20.000 citizens of North Macedonia, and 4.286 telephone numbers were illegally monitored. Among those tapped were officials of the then opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, businessmen and journalists, as well as ministers from the ruling VMRO DPMNE in the Government of Nikola Gruevski...