Almost all units of the Montenegrin police were engaged in breaking up demonstrations on Saturday, October 24, and in addition to the use of physical force that evening, hundreds of cartridges of strong and health-threatening CS tear gas were thrown at citizens. This is shown by data from police documents obtained by Monitor.
The report is being made Commission for determining the circumstances of the use of means of coercion, formed by the Police Directorate just one day after the protest.
The president of the three-member commission founded by the director of the police administration, Slavko Stojanović, was Željko Peković, chief police inspector, and the members are inspectors Mijodrag Starovlah and Marko Radusinović. Although the Commission stated that the use of force by the police that evening was appropriate and in accordance with the law, the data from those documents indicate the opposite.
An integral part of the Komsija's report are the special reports of the commanders of the police units that participated in breaking up the demonstrations: CB Podgorica, CB Nikšić, CB Bar, CB Bijelo Polje, CB Berane, CB Budva, CB Pljevlja, CB Herceg Novi, as well as the Special Police Unit for for the suppression of terrorism and organized crime and the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ). It's like a war.
Among the policemen who participated in the Autumn 2015 action, as the action is called in police documents, a large number of them have criminal records and accusations of abuse of office.
From the report of the Commission, it follows that the use of means of coercion in front of the Assembly was first ordered by the head of CB Podgorica, Jovica Rečević. It is stated that he "immediately informed the police director" Stojanović about this over the phone. Rečević was appointed to that position this summer, although he was let go for a while due to omissions in the cases of Vijesti vehicles being set on fire and the incident in the KCCG Emergency Center, when members of the Zagorica clan harassed the medical staff for several hours.
"After 22 p.m., after the speeches of DF representatives, a large number of oysters, wooden poles, torches and other pyrotechnic devices were thrown at police officers," Rečević justifies the use of force in his report to the Commission. He claims that he issued several warnings to the organizer of the meeting and the citizens through a megaphone, and that the force followed after the attacks did not stop.
"A large number of gathered citizens grabbed and demolished the protective fence, which was located in front of the police cordon, they dragged, pushed and threw it, moving towards the police officers", says Rečević. Footage of the incident, after which the police torture began, shows that they did not attack the fence citizens, but hooligans with phantoms. Also, the videos show that after they broke down the fence, the hooligans run away. DF claims that the hooligans were hired by the DPS.
Rečević states that he finally issued an order to use coercion to prevent a larger group of people from entering the Assembly. There are no video recordings or testimonies about the attempted forced entry into the Assembly.
Rečević did not explain in the report how it is that the police have not yet arrested any of the miscreants who threatened them with such a terrible danger.
The other managers who submitted reports to the Commission claim that force was used in accordance with the law, and that the police were even threatened with their lives afterwards. One gets the impression that the police were fighting with groups of terrorists that evening, and not attacking bare-handed citizens, as numerous videos show.
Read more in the new Monitor
Bonus video:
