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Montenegro’s Attempt to Create Database of Wartime Paramilitaries Fails

January 27, 202315:07
The state prosecution said it failed to create a database of Montenegrin citizens who were members of paramilitary units during the 1990s wars because of a lack of cooperation from other former Yugoslav countries.

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Conference about Montenegro’s strategy for war crimes investigations in Podgorica. Photo: BIRN/Samir Kajosevic.

Montenegrin Special State Prosecutor Tanja Colan Deretic said on Friday that her office was not able to set up a database of paramilitary fighters that might have helped in war crimes prosecutions because other ex-Yugsolav states did not provide the help that was requested.

“In the past two years, the prosecution requested help from neighbuoring countries in order to make a list of Montenegrin citizens who participated in wars on their soil or were members of paramilitary organisations, but there were few responses,” Colan Deretic told a conference in Podgorica about Montenegro’s national strategy for war crimes investigation.

We didn’t manage to complete the list, even though some people were identified through the UN’s International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals [in The Hague],” she added.

In May 2015, the Supreme State Prosecution adopted a state strategy on war crimes investigations, pledging to create a database of Montenegrin citizens involved in paramilitary units and reopen archived investigations.

According to the strategy, the Montenegrin prosecution should review old cases and identify people who had command responsibility for war crimes.

But in the past seven years, Montenegro has launched only two trials of its citizens who were allegedly involved in war crimes committed by the Yugoslav Army or paramilitary units. In December 2019, former Yugoslav Army soldier Vlado Zmajevic was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the murder of four ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo in 1999.

Last September, the Higher Court in Podgorica began the trial of former Bosnian Serb Army soldier Slobodan Pekovic, who is accused of murder and rape in the town of Foca in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, the head of Human Rights Action, which organised Friday’s conference, said that the prosecution had failed to proactively investigate war crimes committed by Montenegrin citizens.

She pointed out that Zmajevic and Pekovic were charged after their cases were handed by prosecutions in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“The prosecution failed to file indictments on its own initiative. There were no deadlines for the implementation of the strategy, even though human rights organisations asked for this. The prosecution needs expert help in order to improve the way it deals with the wartime past,” Gorjanc Prelevic said.

As a part of Yugoslavia, Montenegro participated in the 1990s wars, although there was no fighting on its own territory. Since the country became independent in 2006, it has held just eight trials for war crimes committed in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and only low-level perpetrators have been brought to court.

In its 2022 report on Montenegro’s progress towards EU membership, the European Commission stated that the prosecution has achieved limited results in implementing its war crime strategy, but noted that the country is seeking to make changes to the law intended to improve the way it deals with war crimes.

Samir Kajosevic


This post is also available in this language: Shqip Bos/Hrv/Srp


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