The government elected the head of the Sector for Financial-Intelligence Affairs by a majority of votes this morning around three o'clock Aleksandar Radović for the acting director of the police at the proposal of the prime minister Milojko Spajić.
The government previously adopted by a majority of votes the conclusion authorizing Spajić to propose the acting director of the police, although this has no basis in the Law on Internal Affairs.
The law stipulates that the acting police director is proposed by the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Previously, during the marathon session of the Government, which was interrupted several times, the Prime Minister proposed that Radović be the "coordinator" of the Police Directorate, even though this is not foreseen by the Law on Internal Affairs.
That proposal was not voted on at the Government session.
During the discussion on Spajić's proposal that the police be coordinated by Radović, the Minister of the Interior Danilo Šaranović read to the members of the Government Article 416 of the Criminal Code, which describes the criminal offense of abuse of official position, for which a prison sentence of six months to five years is prescribed, "Vijesti" learns.
Then it was to Šaranović, whose proposal was that the acting director of the Police Administration be Lazar Scepanovic rejected, reproached for not providing "passability in the Government for such a proposal".
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Then the ministers from the Europe Movement now asked Šaranović to propose another candidate, while he demanded that he be guaranteed "the passability of such a proposal", which he did not get.
After that, the Government session was interrupted.
During the break, at the request of one of the ministers from the Europe Now Movement, an informal meeting was held between Šaranović, Spajić and other members of the Government, at which the Minister of the Interior offered to elect Miloš Peković as acting director, the only one remaining registered for the public invitation, who, in addition to Šćepanovića, passed the polygraph test.
However, he did not receive the consent of the majority.
About twenty minutes after that meeting, the session continued, and Spajić proposed Radović as acting director of the police.
The proposal of the Minister of Police from the Democrats that Šćepanović be the acting director was rejected a few minutes before midnight, when he emphasized the mandate of the dismissed Zoran Brđanin.
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Then the Prime Minister suggested that Radović, one of the applicants for the temporary head of the Police Administration, would coordinate that service in the future.
The crisis surrounding the dismissal of Brđanin and the election of his successor has been going on since December, the Democrats and the PES have remained in the same positions because neither of them is giving up on "their" candidates.
The conflict practically escalated at yesterday's tense session of the Government, which was interrupted several times...
Šaranović warned the Prime Minister and members of the Government last night at around 22,30:XNUMX p.m. that they are entering the zone of criminal responsibility if they decide to vote for any candidate, except the one he proposed.
The pause was announced several times due to the request of Prime Minister Spajić and ministers from PES to remove the secrecy mark "internal" from the entire report of the Minister of Police on the selection procedure of the temporary chief of police, including the documentation on the polygraph test of all seven candidates for that position.
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Previously, at around 20:15, the Government, by its conclusion, obliged Saranović to submit special information with all biographies, after which the session was once again interrupted.
"Regarding the Government's conclusion, I have just submitted a written warning to the Government that there is only one candidate for acting director of the Police Directorate, in accordance with Article 16 paragraph 4 of the Law on Internal Affairs, and that is police officer Lazar Šćepanović. I also informed all members of the Government that if a decision is made tonight about any person except Lazar Šćepanović, it would be a violation of the law and the rule of law, and any member of the Government who would decide to do something like that would enter the zone of criminal responsibility. Along with this warning, I also submitted detailed information with the biographies of the remaining six persons, with a clear indication that they are not candidates for the director of the Police Directorate," Saranović told "Vijesta" last night.
It was not clear why this was requested, when all the biographies are an integral part of the materials submitted by the Minister of Police before the start of the session, and all members of the Government have access to secret information.
The interlocutor from Demokrat said that it was part of a plan for the rest of the government to choose one of the six other applicants as acting director of the police, and not the current assistant of the Department for the fight against crime. Lazar Šćepanović, who was proposed by Saranović as the only candidate because he gave "the best proposal for urgent measures aimed at reforming the police, achieving the maximum level of operation and raising capacity against all forms of crime". "This was done so that the Personnel Commission could propose to the Government someone else from the list of applicants," said the source.
According to the Law on Internal Affairs, the minister is exclusively competent to submit to the Government a proposal for the acting director of the UP, and the Government as a collective body gives its consent or not to such a proposal.
"In the event that the mandate of the Police Director ends before the end of the term for which he was appointed, or in the event that the Police Director is prevented from performing his duties permanently or for a long time for any reason, the Government shall, upon the proposal of the Minister, appoint one of the heads of the internal organizational of a Police unit, who fulfills the conditions for the Director of the Police prescribed by this law, and for a maximum of six months", is stated in Article 16 of that act.
At an electronic session on March 3, the government made a decision on the dismissal of police director Zoran Brđanin, extending his mandate until yesterday - March 12, which is why the issue of his successor had to be resolved by last night at midnight.
One of the options was for the Government to repeal that decision or extend the period until which he remains at the head of the police.
The start of the marathon session of the Government was delayed by almost two hours due to several unsuccessful meetings in which it was suggested that the head of the Government accept the proposal of Minister Šaranović or choose one of the two candidates, who applied to the public invitation of the MUP and passed the polygraph test, and on the other side that Šaranović accepts the PES candidate.
The President of the Assembly was present at one of the meetings Andrija Mandic, Becic and Spajic...
Tensions, interruptions...
The source of "Vijesti" from Democratic Montenegro stated that in one part of the session, allegedly, the Minister of Justice was present Andrej Milović tried to insult the ministers, who come from DCG.
"Peasant's work", the source claims that Milović allegedly said while he was the Minister of the Interior Danilo Šaranović had a word.
After that, according to the source, he reacted violently Aleksa Becic calling on Milović to stop the insults, stating that he is "the last person who could impute something like that"...
The Deputy Prime Minister then allegedly got up from his seat, and then threatened with his finger that he "must not behave like that".
Another "Vijesti" source from the Europe Now Movement, however, when asked if there was an argument with Bečić, said that this was not true and that "there was no argument"...
The session that started at 16:25 p.m. was interrupted three times until 21:20 p.m., and at around 15:XNUMX p.m. the interruption came because a conclusion was adopted that asked Šaranović to submit information with the biographies of all applicants for the public invitation for acting director of the Administration of the police, as well as an assessment of whether they meet the requirements for that position.
"Vijesti" learned that the biographies of all applicants were already in the materials marked with the level of secrecy "internal".
From PES, according to unofficial information from "Vijesti", they insisted that the secret mark be removed from the report on the implementation of the public call, and a harm test was also demanded to check whether the secret mark was placed correctly.
In several reactions, during the Government session, it was announced from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that at the beginning of the year, the officials who deal with polygraph testing issued a decision of the level of secrecy "Internal" for all polygraph tests, which stated the reasons for the harmfulness of the act, and where the disclosure of such information would certain consequences occurred.
After the election of Radović, Šaranović told "Vijesta" that he would inform the competent state authorities about the suspicion that criminal acts were committed at the Government session, because it "exceeded the limits of its authority" and elected Radović.
Šćepanović and Peković passed
On the eve of the Government session, when he disclosed the proposal for the acting head of the UP, the Minister of Internal Affairs stated that Šćepanović performed best during the interview and that he did not lie on any of the questions asked during the polygraph examination.
The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that the same method will be followed by a "fundamental personnel reform within the entire police apparatus and the sector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs"...
According to unofficial information from "Vijesti", Šćepanović and the commander of the Special Police Unit Milos Pekovic were the only ones out of seven candidates who passed the polygraph test on Monday, which was organized in the office of the State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Petar Koprivica.
Šćepanović and Peković were already on the list of Minister Saranović when he was in the government before, during the almost three-month dialogue about the successor Zoran Brđanin in the chair of the first policeman, verbally suggested that they would be a good option to lead the police apparatus in an acting capacity.
The polygraph was offered to candidates in the public invitation and the form defined by the Government, when it decided to dismiss the current director Brđanin at the electronic session on March 3. It was stated there that refusing the polygraph, which is not evidence in court, is not an eliminatory condition for application, but all applicants accepted the test.
"Vijesti" learned that the polygraph examiner formulated various questions for the candidates about their possible connections with members of organized crime, as well as connections and influence with politics and political parties.
Some of the candidates "failed" to questions about connections with politicians, influence on earlier election processes, while some gave false answers to questions about involvement in cigarette smuggling and other illegal activities...
The testing of one of the candidates failed due to his health condition at the time when he was given a polygraph test.
Some of the candidates, who did not pass the lie detector, claimed in unofficial statements to "Vijesti" that they accepted the polygraph test due to the transparency of the process, but that a neutral polygraphist should have been hired, outside the MUP/UP, and that everyone should have been given the same, general questions.
The "Vijesti" source from Demokrat claims that the polygraphist himself requested that, if necessary, he too be tested on a polygraph in "the country chosen by the Government".
In addition to Šćepanović and Peković, the Assistant Director of the Sector for Financial Intelligence reported to the public invitation of the MUP Aleksandar Radovic, who in police and political circles is marked as a favorite of PES, acting assistant of the Border Police Sector Milutin Vasiljević, head of the Kolašin police Zoran Braunović, head of the Regional Border Police Center "Centar" Petar Šestović and an unassigned UP employee Milentija Doderović.
Bajramspahić: The law mandates an agreement, not arbitrariness
Citizen activist Dina Bajramspahić told "Vijesta" that the Law on Internal Affairs mandates an agreement, not the arbitrariness of anyone.
She asked herself that if the acting director of the police is blocked like this, imagine how the official election of the director will go, after the competition, "when all the ruling parties, not just two, will want to "embed in" and "scratch" the possibility to they blackmail and withhold their support until they are satisfied with something".
"That is why all ministers and the prime minister have one equal vote on this issue at the government session. The minister's proposal is important, but the government's consent is also important, and no one should put the interests of their party before the general interests - and that is the depoliticized police." , stated Bajramspahić, while the Government session was in progress.
She stressed that the purpose of the participation of several participants in appointments and appointments "is not to set up a problematic personnel solution, and not for each side to use its part of the procedure to demonstrate force".
"Today, more than ever, it is normalized for the sake of party interests to block the functioning of institutions, as if it were a "party right". Without any responsibility and accountability to citizens for capricious behavior, she stated.
Bajramspahić states that this is not a question of principles, and we are not looking for "the best candidate, but the most suitable".
"This is a naked struggle for the instrumentalization of the police for party purposes".
She also stated that the parties caused damage to their own favorites by their behavior, so now even those who objectively have some references will be remembered only as party personnel.
"The police did not "belong" to either the Democrats or the PES. It is surprising how many serious people repeat that the police belonged to one or the other through a coalition agreement, as if it were normal, in defense of the right to arbitrariness of one or the other."
Technical face and political lessons
At the Government session, Defense Minister Dragan Krapović had a heated argument with Secretary General of the Government Dragoljub Nikolić, according to newspaper sources.
According to that information, Nikolić intervened in a political discussion, when Krapović warned him that he was a technical person, that no one had elected him and that he was not giving them political lessons.
"Krapović then told Spajić to discipline the technical person next to him, so that he wouldn't discipline", recounted the interlocutor of Vijesti.
After that, the Secretary General allegedly did not get involved in the discussion.
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