Montenegro: PM Djukanovic Accuses Opposition Of Being Involved In ‘Plot To Kill Him’

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By Dusica Tomovic

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic has accused the pro-Russian opposition of direct involvement in an alleged plot to change the government by force and kill him on election day.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic told Pink M television on Wednesday that the main opposition pro-Russian Democratic Front was “part of the plot” to seize parliament and murder him after last month’s elections,

“I see their activity as participation in the preparation of my murder and to take away the independence of Montenegro. With that we will have to live, both them and I,” Djukanovic told Montenegrin branch of Serbia’s Pink TV, which is considered closed to the ruling parties in both Serbia in Montenegro.

Djukanovic also called on Russia to explain the role of two of its citizens in the alleged coup attempt on election day, on October 16, saying he expects Moscow’s response in the next stage of the investigation in Montenegro.

“If we do not want to believe that the Russian state can have had anything to do with it, then it will have to say who those people and their names are,” Djukanovic said.

The Front has repeatedly denied claims made in the pro-government media in Montenegro that it was involved in a plot to seize the parliament and overturn the government by force.

The special prosecutor for organised crime and corruption, Milivoje Katnic, on Sunday said that “a powerful organisation” comprising as many as 500 people from Russia, Serbia and Montenegro was behind the alleged plot.

Katnic accused two nationalists from Russia – with the help of allies in Montenegro and Serbia – of having planned a coup on election day and “kill Prime Minister Djukanovic”.

The Front on Monday accused the prosecution of fabricating claims that Russian and Serbian nationalists plotted a coup.

Nebojsa Medojevic, one of the Front’s leaders, claimed the state prosecution made up both the terrorists and the alleged coup plot because it needed an alibi “to arrest the leaders of the opposition”.

Russia has also denied any involvement into an alleged attempt to kill Prime Minister Djukanovic.

Fourteen of those arrested, including a retired Serbian police commander Bratislav Dikic, have been placed in one month’s detention. Six others were released. The two Russian nationals allegedly involved in the plot remain at large, according to Katnic.

The prosecution also presented evidence it seized during the investigation in a three-minute video, including the equipment used by special police forces, an iron wire used to block roads, handcuffs, bats, Motorola phones, pepper sprays and more.

The opposition said it proved nothing, as such equipment could be bought anywhere for a couple of euros.
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Balkan Insight

The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.

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