Ćulafić: Topics that polarize and are painful, murders of journalists and others, should not be in focus now

A councilor of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) in Podgorica, Stefan Ćulafić, said that insisting on topics that polarize and are painful for Montenegrin society, "such as the murders of journalists and so on," is not something that should be in focus at the moment.

"This is about some things that have been current for about twenty years and now the same stories are being emphasized again. The question arises - why and for whose sake. I think that this is an insistence on topics that polarize society, that are painful for Montenegrin society, such as the murders of journalists and so on... that is not what should be the focus of attention now," said Ćulafić in a guest appearance on Television of Montenegro.

He said that he supports investigating everything to the end, but also believes that the parliamentary Inquiry Committee was formed to "distance Montenegro from crucial topics."

Ćulafić commented on yesterday's presentation by long-time official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police Administration, Milan Paunović, before the committee.

"There remains a mystery regarding the address of Mr. Paunović, who kept the data for so long and did not communicate it to the public or the competent authorities. It seems to me that we are only now seeing the function of the Inquiry Committee - this body was formed to distance Montenegro from topics that are crucial. Insisting and occupying media space in this sense is really working to distract Montenegro from what is a common goal, about which we have a consensus, and these are the issues that bind us, namely the issue of joining the European Union," said Ćučafić.

"Regarding Mr. Paunović's statement, it is clear that the leader of the parliamentary majority, and we constantly point out that it is Andrija Mandić, will not allow anyone to appear at the Inquiry Committee without having agreed on what that gentleman will say. It seems to me that this is a pre-staged scenario, which aims to criminalize some of the people who, on behalf of DPS, held the most responsible positions in the previous period, especially in the security sector," he adds.

He called on the prosecution to investigate all of Paunović's allegations and, if "there is truth in what he said," to prosecute everything it considers important.

The journalist recalled that yesterday, after Paunović's presentation, Mihailo Volkov, the lawyer for former Police Directorate Director Veselin Veljović, also spoke out, saying that police and prosecutorial activities were carried out in response to similar theses and assumptions, which, as he says, confirmed such findings, denying Paunović's claims.

"This is about some things that have been current for about twenty years and now the same stories are being emphasized again. The question arises - why and for whose sake. I think that this is an insistence on topics that polarize society, that are painful for Montenegrin society, such as the murders of journalists and so on... that is not what should be the focus of attention now. I absolutely support investigating everything to the end, but I am not convinced that the security and prosecutorial authorities did not do their best to investigate it in the previous period," said Ćulafić.

He recalled that a reward of one million euros was recently announced for information about the 2004 murder of "Dan" editor Duško Jovanović.

"Then we find out that this award was announced 10, 15 years ago, that the same move was made while the DPS was in power. All these things sometimes seem so unnecessary, it seems to me," Ćulafić believes.