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22:05 Strugar said he wouldn't do anything differently.
"I was ashamed of what we went through by being led by politicians. I didn't lose a single battle, we all lost the war. I expressed my condolences to the victims in the territory of Rožaj while I was there. My unit was dismissed towards the end of the war, there is a suspicion that there may have been the idea to come to other circumstances," said Strugar.
22:00 Strugar said that for the Montenegrin public, Pavle would have been a traitor if he refused the order and stayed with his Croatian wife in Podgorica.
"His orders were sent according to all the rules of the Geneva Convention and warfare. He never ordered the bombing of the Old Town of Dubrovnik," said Strugar.
21:58 Strugar said that he is not saying that any of the politicians from Montenegro should be personally responsible.
"Politics was shaped in Belgrade," said Strugar.
21:49 Strugar said that his father Pavle was an honorable officer and a true patriot, and that what happened on the battlefields from Slovenia to Kosovo was dishonorable from all sides.
As for Montenegro, Strugar said: "The easiest thing was to say no or commit suicide. Pavle is not a character who would commit suicide. Montenegrins were looking for a Montenegrin commander, he did not order or do anything dishonorable. My mother is Croatian, Catholic, my father A Montenegrin. How could Pavle tell the Montenegrins in 1991 that he would not be a commander? It was not Pavle and Predrag who decided where this country would go."
Komnenić said that Milo Đukanović and Momir Bulatović said that "the generals deceived" by mentioning his father.
Komnenić states that Nikola Samardžić said in The Hague that Pavle Strugar and Bulatović were the authors of the story of 30.000 Ustaša on the Montenegrin border, which was the reason for Bulatović and his team to start mobilizing and justify what Svetozar Marović called a "war for peace".
"Pavle could not deceive them because he was the commander of the territorial defense. The order about this came from Belgrade, not from the command of the Second Army," said Strugar.
21:43 Strugar said that his father Pavle (Hague convict) honorably performed his duties and eventually ended up as the commander of the territorial defense in Montenegro.
"We presented to the court at least 10 orders of Pavle Strugar prohibiting the opening of fire on the Old Town of Dubrovnik. Milan Jokić, who admitted that he had shelled in order to receive a lesser sentence and falsely testified against Pavle and Milošević, Pavle was convicted on one count of the indictment. He too a war criminal because he did not punish Jokić, and he did not put him in that position but Kadijević and Adzić. When he was taken to Kadijević and Adzić for a report, Jokić was returned to his duty, and Pavle then finished with Jokić, he could not even punish him or dismiss him," said Strugar.
21:40 Komnenic asked whether the acquittal with the explanation of lack of evidence after the disastrous, senseless indictment was a satisfaction for Strugar or if his agony continues.
"It is not satisfaction, the agony continues. The way and approach of work from military to civilian is criminal", said Strugar.
21:35 Komnenić mentioned the people who carried out the investigation in Kaluđerski laz, stating that the civil authorities and the police were not allowed access.
"They didn't let me approach the scene. Why didn't civil authorities come later to investigate," said Strugar.
21:29 Strugar said that he learned during the trial that the dead people were transferred to a mass grave in Kosovo.
Strugar asked whether if he had committed the crime in Kaluđerski Laz, he would have sent the investigative authorities.
"Even a murderer would send such investigative bodies," said Komnenic
21:23 When asked where he was on April 18, when the ambush opened fire on people in Kaluđerski laz, Strugar said: "I was at my command post in Bogaje, a village before Rožaj, six, seven, maybe eight, nine km from Kaluđerski lie".
"Around eight or nine in the evening, I found out that there was a shooting incident in Kaluđerski Laz, that there were wounded and dead people. I said that in the morning I would bring the investigative authorities to investigate," he said.
He said that he did not issue orders to his men to occupy the place from which the shots were fired.
21:18 Strugar said that during the NATO bombing, it was the closest situation to a civil war in Montenegro.
"Slobodan Žarić was appointed commander of the special unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro and was stationed in Lokva. If I hadn't established a professional relationship with the officer of the Ministry of Interior of Montenegro, I think anything and everything could have happened. He held a meeting with his unit and that's when the guns were lowered." , said Strugar.
He said that they forbade him to have contact with representatives of the civil authorities and the Ministry of the Interior of Montenegro.
He said that Žarić's role in preventing the civil war in Cna Gora was decisive.
21:12 Strugar said that if he testified in the investigation and was not detained, would he volunteer.
He said that when he heard that others were arrested, he was not ready to come to prison in Montenegro.
"I should accept that the state prosecutor puts me in prison in Bijelo Polje for three years until they finish. It doesn't cross my mind," he said.
21:08 Strugar said that the prosecution acted unprofessionally.
"They planted corpses on me," he said.
"They could only hear from me that civilians are treated humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention," Strugar said.
21:07 Strugar said that the Montenegrin prosecutor's office labeled him and his family "a war criminal responsible for the murder of 23 civilians of Albanian nationality" and that he must blame them for that.
"It was Vesna Medenica, she was the first to go public with such a qualification, before the investigation even started. Then Stojanka Radović took over, who signed the indictment. No witness says that I was there, who shot, as far as people shot. On the basis of which seven of them were taken to prison and not some others," said Strugar.
20:58 Strugar said that when he came to Berane, the barricades were between the police and the army.
"It was difficult to be in Berane in those days at the beginning of the NATO bombing. I found the gun pointed by the police at the army and the army at the police. I told my subordinates that this had to stop immediately. I will talk to the MUP, the president of the municipality of Berane, Rožaje. Imagine when one of my brothers is a doctor, and another is in the MUP unit. Are you going to shoot at each other because of different political affiliations? I will not allow that. They are shooting through Berane, they punctured a bus. They got off under the influence of alcohol," he said.
20:55 Strugar said that the official goal of Belgrade was to protect the borders as far as the army in Kosovo is concerned.
"Maybe the army had some other task in Montenegro. I was not told. The majority of the Orthodox population of the north of Montenegro supported Belgrade, not Podgorica," said Strugar.
He said that he told the army that under the cover of war, a civil war would not happen in Montenegro while he was the commander.
When Komnenić was asked if this was one of the goals of official Belgrade, Strugar said: "Possibly, one of the goals, possible."
20:44 Strugar said that the "Frenkies, the Red Berets" were under command from Serbia, and his unit was under control from Montenegro.
He said that in his unit there were people who were peasants, doctors, engineers, they were given weapons and he was given command.
"I was ashamed that I had to be the commander of that unit. When the general came to visit, we found five or six drunk reservists at one cannon, there was no one else," said Strugar.
20:43 "Some people died in 1998, and someone pushed them into the second count of the indictment," Strugar said.
20:41 Strugar said that in his area, various other paramilitary and legal units, "Frankijevci", "Red Berets" were seen.
20:38 Strugar said that during the war he did not know about the suffering of any of the 11 persons mentioned in the indictment under point 2.
20:34 Strugar said that he was accused in the indictment of having ordered the killing of a man who, according to the court expert, had died of natural causes.
"Some of them were killed when I was not in that territory either before or after and that was established," he said
"It has been proven that four people died in Kaluđerski Laz," said Strugar.
Strugar said that the man of Albanian nationality who was taken to the hospital in Berane, and who later succumbed to his injuries, claimed that his brother was brought dead to Kaludjerski laz, and that he died in Kosovo.
20:25 Strugar believes that the pressure of the international community is the reason why the Montenegrin prosecution started this story.
"It's unfortunate that the prosecution did not do its job. Why didn't the 2.000th prosecution deal with witnesses, evidence? That's when I came and gave a statement in Bijelo Polje. Why didn't they do an investigation then if they were dissatisfied with the military investigation," Strugar asked.
"Unfortunately, the prosecution was guided by the findings of NGOs, journalistic captions, unverified, and based on that they came to a conclusion," said Strugar.
20:20 Strugar confirmed that an old woman and a child were killed, and Komnenic read a statement from the Yugoslav Army that terrorists were killed.
"These are not terrorists," Strugar said, adding that the statement was unprofessionally written and not false.
"These were refugees, neither guilty nor guilty, who sought salvation in a territory where there is no war. Neither you nor I know why it happened on that particular day in Kaluđerski laz, because no investigation has given an answer to that. I was not on the spot," said Strugar.
Strugar said that the width of his combat units was 30 kilometers and it should have been 5-6 kilometers and that he could not be in three places at the same time.
20:12 Strugar said that when the case happened, he took the investigative bodies to the field.
"What were the civil structures waiting for, I don't think I'm a good interlocutor to answer why. The falsification of evidence in my case with framed witnesses, the trial of me and the seven defendants began. That was a criminal act," said Strugar.
20:05 Strugar said that the acquittal came late and that he would find satisfaction after talking with Komnenić.
He said that the stain on his name was partially removed.
"My family and I know what I experienced during those eight years," Strugar said.
He said that he feels bad that the families of the victims will always consider him a criminal.
He said that he did not fight with Albanian refugees and civilians but with units of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), armed groups that were inserted from the territory of Albania into the territory of Kosovo and Montenegro.
Show topic:
In the new edition of the show "Nachisto", watch an exclusive interview with Predrag Strugar, the first accused and legally acquitted in the trial for war crimes in Kaluđerski Laz and its surroundings, where several Albanian refugees from Kosovo were killed during the NATO intervention in 1999.
See how and why the indictments of the Montenegrin prosecutor's office for war crimes are being dropped, which has cost citizens over five million euros so far.
What does Predrag Strugar, whose father Pavle, a Hague convict, was serving a prison sentence in Scheveningen for the attack on Dubrovnik, say three years after the acquittal?
See you on Thursday at 20 pm in the show "Nachisto", only on TV Vijesti!
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