The Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) created a case that is in the investigation phase, based on the documentation it received from the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts, said today the special state prosecutor Lidija Vukčević.
Prosecutor Serž Bramerc stated in his address to the Security Council of the United Nations that the Mechanism handed over to the authorities in Montenegro files relating to more than 15 suspects against whom an investigation can now be carried out for serious crimes, including sexual violence.
Vukčević said that the SDT has excellent cooperation with the Residual Mechanism, which, acting on the request of the SDT, performed a database search in order to determine whether in certain events that took place on the territory of other countries where there were armed conflicts, which would constitute war Montenegrin citizens participated in the crime.
She said at the conference "Facing the past – where we are today", organized by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, that the SDT received a certain amount of data and evidence in November.
According to her, it is now being evaluated whether there is enough data indicating that Montenegrin citizens participated in certain events, that is, that they committed a war crime.
"The documentation is very serious and extensive and requires detailed analysis, identification of possible perpetrators, whether they are really Montenegrin citizens. That case has been formed and is in the investigation phase," said Vukčević.
Vukčević said that there were proceedings before the Montenegrin courts for criminal acts of war crimes committed on the territory of Montenegro.
"In recent years, data and evidence have been collected, in cooperation with the prosecutor's offices in the surrounding area, with the aim of identifying the perpetrators of war crimes who are Montenegrin citizens and who committed crimes on the territory of other countries, because only in that situation is the SDT competent to prosecute the perpetrators those criminal acts," explained Vukčević.
She stated that such an example was the case of Zmajević when, in cooperation with the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution, they collected evidence in order to determine whether a Montenegrin citizen had committed a criminal offense against the civilian population on the territory of Kosovo.
Journalist Sead Sadiković, speaking about media coverage during the 90s, said that during that period citizens learned about what was happening from two media outlets - Pobjeda and Radio Television of Montenegro.
"What could we have known except what they presented to us. When the war starts, the truth first suffers, when you kill the truth, you have to reach it. In Montenegro, it is affected by the lack of a serious media scene," Sadiković assessed.
He believes that there were no free media in Montenegro at that time and that media such as Monitor and Liberal were created reflexively.
"They reached people very little. There is a famous story about the Monitor wrapped in Pobjeda. Not to mention when the Monitor was seized by our prosecutors and police officers as evidence for anti-state activities in Montenegro," said Sadiković.
Speaking about the anti-war movement, the president of the Civic Alliance, Boris Raonic, said that the people who were supposed to be heroes today lost their fitness very quickly.
He said that the work in Montenegro was a whole series of absurd situations.
Raonic stated that when the first anti-war rally was held in Montenegro in July 1991, an organization called the Yugoslav League for Peace called for a boycott of that rally
"At the moment when a Montenegrin intellectual calls for the prevention of anti-Muslim and anti-Croat campaigns and calls for peace, the prosecutor's office at the time initiates proceedings against him for spreading hate speech and inciting national and religious intolerance," said Raonic.
He stated that his task was to mention people who spoke at anti-war rallies at the time.
"But I can't do that. Except for people like Slavko Perović, people who wrote in Liberal, people from the Liberal Alliance," said Raonic.
He believes that the counter-lustration process has been achieved in Montenegro because amnesties have been granted to people who were victims.
"Even nations supported their executioners," Raonic said.
He said that today in Montenegro the process of depersonalization of guilt was successfully completed, by building the image of collective responsibility.
Ferid Osmanagić, from the non-governmental organization Bukovica, speaking about the "Case: Bukovica", stated that at the beginning of 92, in that territory, due to various forms of pressure, the reserve composition of the Yugoslav Army and the Montenegrin police, 24 villages with a majority Bosniak Muslim nationality were displaced and that more than 220 people have been displaced.
Osmanagić stated that six Bosniaks were killed in Bukovica from 1992 to 1995 without any reason, and that only one murder was solved.
"11 citizens were kidnapped and taken to prison in Čajniče, seven of whom were returned to Pljevlja and the rest were exchanged in Goražda," said Osmanagić.
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