Pavićević for Portal ETV: Court confirmed my claims - the indictment was fabricated

The suspension of the criminal proceedings and the dismissal of the indictment filed by the Special State Prosecutor’s Office were expected and represented the only legally correct outcome under criminal law - former head of the Podgorica Security Centre Milovan Pavićević said in a statement to Portal ETV. He added that the decision of the judicial panel fully confirmed the defence he had presented at two hearings concerning the review of the indictment.

In addition to Pavićević, the High Court, citing a lack of evidence, also halted proceedings against his colleagues Drago Spičanović and Vladan Lazović, businessman Aleksandar Mijajlović, Higher State Prosecutor Andrijana Nastić, and politician Predrag Bošković.

According to Pavićević, the High Court’s decision constitutes institutional confirmation of the facts and legal arguments he presented in his defence during the review of the indictment.

- At the time, based on written evidence held by the institutions of the system, I concluded that the indictment was the result of a police-prosecutorial construct, that it contained material factual errors and that, to put it mildly, it was unclear from a criminal-law perspective. I also pointed out that it contained no evidence that the criminal offences alleged against me had been committed, and that the basic or mandatory elements of the offences of creating a criminal organisation and abuse of official position, for which I was unjustifiably suspected and unlawfully indicted, were not present - Pavićević said.

He stressed that the prosecutors handling the preliminary inquiry and prosecutorial investigation had not focused on establishing the facts. Instead, he said, they had constructed the charges based on a free and arbitrary interpretation of citizens’ and preventive police communications. Such charges, he emphasised, were discriminatory because they criminalised the civic, constitutional and legal right to hold and express national, religious and political views and affiliations, without prosecutorial investigation or a factually established distinction between citizens’ rights and the official duties of police officers.

- The indictment was unlawful because it was based on false information, which the prosecutor was required, and also able, to easily verify before using it as truthful in official prosecutorial documents. The prosecutors handling the case made unlawful decisions and filed an unlawful indictment based on their own unfounded constructs and assumptions, without a factual or legal basis. As a result, they caused unlawful deprivation of liberty, unjustified prosecutorial detention, and restrictions on freedom of movement - 11 and a half months of house arrest - as well as an unlawful search of my home and the unlawful seizure of personal belongings that do not constitute objects used in the commission of a criminal offence and are not covered by the criminal proceedings in accordance with the prescribed legal procedures and deadlines. These items have been unlawfully retained for more than 11 months, despite the fact that their origin, ownership, legal basis, and period of acquisition are known - Pavićević pointed out.

According to him, the restriction of his freedom of movement consequently resulted in the violation and endangerment of other fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of Montenegro and international conventions.

Pavićević said that he had suffered both material and non-material damage, adding that, once the High Court panel’s decision is confirmed, the competent institutions would determine the matter in separate legal proceedings in accordance with domestic and international law.