The Ministry of Justice of Montenegro has also sent a seventh request for the extradition of Svetozar Marović, a former senior DPS official, who has been in Belgrade since 2016, although he was convicted by a final verdict for leading an organized crime group that caused damage to Budva worth millions.
"We hope that this will finally bear fruit, but we certainly hope that at other levels, i.e. through direct communication with representatives of the government of the Republic of Serbia, we will finally reach a more positive outcome and that the extradition will finally be completed," said Justice Minister Bojan Božović.
Over the past nine years, Montenegro has sent Serbia six requests and requests for Marović's extradition, signed by four different ministers - from Zoran Pažin in 2019 to Marko Kovač in 2022. None of them have borne fruit. The response to the last request from August 2022 never arrived from Belgrade.
"It is not unusual, therefore, when another country is not obliged to respond, but of course we have not had any official response, which does not mean that we have not communicated, as I say, during the tenure of this government, as well as during the tenure of previous governments," claims Božović.
In 2021, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, speaking about Marović's extradition, said that it was incredibly complicated, while the country's judicial authorities referred to their own judicial procedures. After being released from custody in 2016, according to the official version, Marović went to Belgrade for treatment, from where he still evades serving his sentence. The absolute statute of limitations for the sentence to which Marović was sentenced - three years and nine months in prison - will expire in October 2026. His son Miloš, who was also sentenced by a final verdict, never served his sentence because the statute of limitations had expired in Serbia in the meantime. Minister Božović hopes that this will not be the case with the elder Marović.
"That's why we are taking all these steps and we will point out this fact once again, I say it again, as another argument for this extradition to finally be completed in the only fair way it should be," he explained.
Svetozar Marović, who was the speaker of the Montenegrin parliament and the main ideologist of the DPS, pleaded guilty in May 2016 to leading a criminal group, accepted a fine and compensation of over one million euros, but never paid the money. Part of his sentence was replaced with prison, which he also did not serve.
At the same time, the Minister of Justice confirmed to Television Vijesti that he will attend tomorrow's session of the Inquiry Committee, formed to investigate politically motivated murders and attacks on journalists, politicians, and free intellectuals.
"I think it is good that the inquiry committee opens up this topic and that it is discussed. Of course, neither the Ministry of Justice, nor the Parliament, or the inquiry committee, have direct jurisdiction, nor does anyone represent that in this way to decide on specific cases, but I think it is good that it is discussed and that we are all sufficiently informed about the statuses, about those statuses in which this is possible at the moment," the minister assessed.
At its first session held at the end of March, the Inquiry Committee decided to open a parliamentary investigation into the so-called "black threes", and members of that parliamentary body expect an explanation from the justice department as to whether active proceedings are being conducted in any cases.
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