Facts yielded to revenge - seven criminal complaints filed against Zvicer in 2021 and 2022

The Department for Combating Organized Crime filed seven criminal complaints against one of the leaders of the Kavač clan, Radoje Zvicer, between 2021 and 2022, and based on that department’s request, a red Interpol notice was issued for him.

This was stated two days ago at a hearing before the High Court, during the trial of retired chief prosecutor Milivoje Katnić, former senior police official Zoran Lazović, and suspended special prosecutor Saša Čađenović, by former head of that department Milorad Žižić, testifying as a witness.

Special prosecutor Miloš Šoškić accuses Katnić, Lazović, and Čađenović of subordinating their official duties to the Kavač criminal clan and acting in its interest. Žižić is a witness in the proceedings, but the Special State Prosecutor’s Office has also launched an investigation against him, alleging that he was a member of a criminal group allegedly formed by Zoran Lazović.

UNDISPUTED FACTS

Through the testimony of Žižić, as well as his colleagues Veselin Damjanović, Enis Baković, and Nikola Janičić, the claims of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office were refuted - that the Kavač clan and its high-ranking members were privileged and protected from prosecution while Katnić and his team led the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

The first criminal complaint against Zvicer was filed in April 2021 for the murder of Nikola Stanišić, followed by one in July 2021 for preparing the assassination of Milić „Minja“ Šaković, and a third in November 2021 for the murder of Milo Radulović, known as “Captain.” The remaining complaints were filed during 2022: for the murders of Damir Hodžić and Adis Spahić, for the attempted murder of Jovan Jovanović, and for planning the murder of Strahinja Savić.

In four of these cases, the acting prosecutor was Saša Čađenović. Along with numerous other facts, this clearly indicates that he was the one prosecuting Zvicer and dozens of members of that criminal group. He handled investigations into the murders of Stanišić, Hodžić and Spahić, Radulović, as well as the investigation that uncovered a group planning to assassinate Šaković, who, according to security service records, was a high-ranking member of the Škaljari criminal clan.

Žižić’s testimony unequivocally confirmed that the Department for Combating Organized Crime and special prosecutor Saša Čađenović prosecuted the top leadership of the Kavač criminal clan -Slobodan Kašćelan, Radoje Zvicer, Miloš Radonjić, Milan Vujotić, and many other high-ranking members - for the most serious crimes, including kidnappings and murders.

As Žižić stated, in 2020 the department secured five cooperating witnesses, and the testimonies of several of them led to the prosecution of individuals from the Kavač clan.

That same year, in a single operation codenamed „Cover Me“, more than 50 members of the Kavač criminal group were prosecuted with the help of two cooperating witnesses. In both 2020 and 2021, Žižić’s testimony showed, the number of prosecuted members of the Kavač clan was significantly higher.

POLITICAL CHANGES

After the August 2020 elections and the formation of the first pro-Russian and pro-Serbian government in December, a key item on the agenda of the new authorities was the removal of Chief Special Prosecutor Katnić and his team. They were targeted because of the process colloquially referred to as the „coup case“. Katnić and his team had brought to trial leaders of the pro-Russian and pro-Serbian Democratic Front, Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević, on suspicion that they had collaborated with Russian security services that were preparing a coup on election night in Montenegro in October 2016, in order to prevent the country’s accession to NATO.

They failed, as one of the individuals involved in the operation decided to inform Montenegrin security services.

After a first-instance guilty verdict, Mandić and Knežević stated that they would take revenge sooner or later.

Just four years after the 2016 elections, they managed to take power in Montenegro without a coup. As expected, the first person they wanted to remove was Milivoje Katnić. Since he was still in office and could not be dismissed, they amended several laws and forced him into retirement.

In March 2022, Vladimir Novović was appointed Chief Special Prosecutor. The revenge could then begin.

Čađenović was first arrested on December 9, 2022, and held in pretrial detention in Spuž for 19 and a half months. Katnić and Lazović were arrested on April 14, 2024, and are still being held in the investigation prison.

They are accused of collaborating with the mafia, of being protectors of the Kavač clan. The facts, however, have given way to revenge.

In the meantime, Mandić and Knežević have been absolved of any guilt. By a final court ruling, they, along with Russian agents and all others, including those who admitted participating in planning the coup in Montenegro, were acquitted. For courts aligned with Mandić and Knežević and the pro-Russian and pro-Serbian parliamentary majority, Russian services did not plan a violent change of government on election night in 2016.

POLITICS AND THE VERDICT

One of them, the current Speaker of Parliament Andrija Mandić, told Milivoje Katnić on March 17, 2017, that he would „pay sooner or later“, stating that „the intention of certain Western intelligence structures, which are managing this operation through local agents, is to use the Montenegro case to try to stop the rapprochement between the administrations of Presidents Putin and Trump by planting the story of a fake Montenegrin coup on Russian special units“...

Seven years later, in July 2024, the President of the High Court in Podgorica, Zoran Radović, ruled that the Montenegrin coup had been fabricated and attributed to Russian services, Mandić, Knežević, and others. The verdict was upheld by the Court of Appeal in February this year.

And Katnić and his team are now paying, just as Mandić had threatened in 2017. The price is high. Regardless of the outcome of the proceedings initiated against Katnić and his associates after pro-Russian socio-political elites took control of power and institutions in Montenegro, their fate appears sealed. Katnić, Lazović, and Čađenović ended up in the prison in Spuž - long enough to satisfy the thirst for revenge. And now, after their final acquittal, Mandić and Knežević have, as they humbly stated, „forgiven“ them.

The indictment against Katnić and his team, brought by their former colleague Miloš Šoškić, is steadily falling apart with each hearing. Each new testimony confirms that they are political prisoners. But in Montenegro, governed by pro-Russian elites, as confirmed by the acquittal in the attempted coup case, facts are not evidence.