„The Lidija Mitrović Case“: From Novović’s protection to Novović’s persecution

„The indictment has not been sent, there’s no time for that today, and the Chief Novović has to review it, he will do so over the weekend“.

„OK, this will finally be finished“. That is what Special Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović thought after her colleague, Special Prosecutor Zoran Vučinić, informed her via WhatsApp messages that the leadership of the Special Prosecutor’s Office had received information that on Thursday, November 24, 2022, Mitrović had submitted to the registry office of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office an indictment against Minister of Defense Olivera Injac for abuse of office.

A LONG JOURNEY

This came after a grueling investigation that lasted more than a year and a half, starting from the first criminal complaints filed against the Minister of Defense in March and April 2021 by attorney Mihailo Volkov.

In the meantime, Minister Injac used her position to avoid summons for questioning: as a suspect, she appeared for the first time only on August 24, 2021, four months after receiving a call from the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

However, Injac then began further delaying tactics and was questioned as a suspect for the second time only on August 10, 2022, a year after her first appearance at the SSPO.

That is why Mitrović perceived the message from her colleague Vučinić as an announcement that the investigative phase was over and that the indictment against Injac would be forwarded for confirmation to the High Court.

However, nothing was finished, nor did events unfold as Prosecutor Mitrović had imagined.

„A MESSAGE FROM THE BOSS“

Just as she entered a hall for a one-day legal seminar in Podgorica, the Special State Prosecutor received an SMS message from the secretary of Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović:

„Prosecutor, on Wednesday you are to come to the Boss,“ the secretary wrote.

When Mitrović asked why she needed to report in seven days, the secretary bluntly replied: „That’s what he said“.

When she returned to her office around 3 p.m. that day, Mitrović realized she had been under special treatment - that the team around the Chief Special Prosecutor had very closely monitored her movements.

And for a strong reason: so that, in Lidija Mitrović’s absence, Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović could order Special Prosecutor Jovan Vukotić to carry out a special operation: the urgent seizure of the indictment against Olivera Injac, all copies, and all accompanying files from the special prosecutor’s office.

THE SEIZURE OF THE INDICTMENT AND FILES

Lidija Mitrović described this precisely in the Official Memorandum dated November 24.

- When I returned from the seminar to my office at 3 p.m., my colleague Milijana informed me that colleague Jovan Vukotić had come on the order of Chief Special Prosecutor Novović and requested that the case files concerning Olivera Injac be immediately handed over to him, after which she handed them to him without notifying or in the presence of the acting prosecutor. Upon learning this, I called Vukotić and told him that he could neither take nor request files for which I am responsible without my presence - Mitrović recorded, among other things, in the Official Memorandum.

The contents of the memorandum leave no doubt that the action of Special Prosecutor Jovan Vukotić - the seizure of the indictment and case files in the Olivera Injac case — was carried out on the personal order of Vladimir Novović.

And all of this without prior notification and without Mitrović’s consent?!

Since the establishment of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime in 2015, such conduct by a Chief Special Prosecutor had not been recorded.

Nor then, nor later, was there any explanation why, until November 24, Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović and the team of special prosecutors had fully supported, protected, and publicly respected the work of Special Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović.

PERSONA NON GRATA

And then, literally overnight, Prosecutor Mitrović became persona non grata within the SSPO, and soon the target of persecution.

The support that the SSPO had provided to Mitrović, and the rejection of numerous initiatives by Minister Injac, is evidenced by documents from the Special State Prosecutor’s Office published by Television E.

Thus, on April 22, 2022, Special Prosecutor Zoran Vučinić dismissed as unfounded a complaint filed by Minister Olivera Injac against Special Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović.

Then, on May 27, Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović rejected Olivera Injac’s request for the disqualification of Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović.

On June 28 of the same year, Deputy Chief Special Prosecutor Miloš Šoškić informed the Prosecutorial Council that Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović had undertaken actions „fully in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code“.

And just one day before Mitrović submitted the indictment against Olivera Injac to the SSPO registry, on November 23, 2022, the then President of the Prosecutorial Council, Maja Jovanović, informed the Special Prosecutor’s Office that „the Prosecutorial Council assessed the complaints against Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović as unfounded“.

What, then, happened during the night between Wednesday, November 23, and Thursday, November 24? Why did a complete turnaround occur, including the forceful seizure of the indictment against Olivera Injac, and later Novović’s fierce persecution of Prosecutor Mitrović?

A MANDATORY POLITICAL INSTRUCTION

Evidently, the Chief Special Prosecutor received from the top of government a „binding political instruction“, that well-known call „that changes everything“. In short: Olivera Injac had to be protected from prosecution at all costs - if the Chief Special Prosecutor wanted to retain the support of the parliamentary majority.

- Although Zdravko Krivokapić’s government had fallen, Olivera Injac had the support of the parliamentary majority, as well as of the leadership of the Serbian Church in Montenegro, which had and still has strong influence over the ruling elite - explains an ETV source from the security sector, well informed about the background of certain moves, not only in politics.

According to this assessment, Novović’s position primarily depended on the support that the parliamentary majority, whose real leader is Andrija Mandić, could secure for him through Parliament, the Prosecutorial Council, and the leadership of the judiciary.

- At the same time, protection for Novović was guaranteed by Milojko Spajić, whose Europe Now Movement (Pokret Evropa sad) party advocated that Olivera Injac must not be prosecuted and that she had already been earmarked for a position in Montenegrin diplomacy - the ETV interlocutor emphasizes.

After becoming absolutely certain of political support, the Chief Special Prosecutor in the following months launched a fierce campaign to challenge the work of Lidija Mitrović.

DIVERGING PATHS

Thus, on December 1, 2022, only seven days after seizing the indictment and case files, Novović issued a binding instruction to Prosecutor Mitrović that she must not prosecute Olivera Injac.

Several months later, and only days before Olivera Injac was to be elected Mayor of Podgorica, on April 6, 2023, a new binding instruction followed. Never before, during twenty years of the SSPO’s existence, had any Chief Special Prosecutor issued two binding instructions.

And, of course, there was again no reaction from the Prosecutorial Council.

By then it was clear that the paths of Olivera Injac and Lidija Mitrović would no longer cross, that the Europe Now Movement official would advance, while the special prosecutor would come under pressure. Their destinies are now entirely different: former Minister of Defense Olivera Injac is on a diplomatic mission in Brussels, while the former special prosecutor, now finally convicted, is somewhere far away - on the run.

In the coming days, our media outlet will present further documents to the public showing how the Chief Special Prosecutor acted and what means he used to rid himself of the „undesirable“ figures within the Special State Prosecutor’s Office.