There were contacts between government and criminals

BELGRADE - Serbia's Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic said on Wednesday, commenting on the arrest of drug lord Darko Saric, that there was basis to suspect there had been contacts between government officials and criminal organizations.

The most important thing is that Saric is in the hands of the authorities and that he will appear before court on Monday, he told TV Pink.

The fact that the public did not know about the money laundering does not mean that many in the government apparatus did not know about it as well, he stated.

"It is impossible to miss when someone brings EUR 2-3 million into the country and attempts to inject them into legal money flows, especially when you are a country in transition in which many companies were privatized in that money laundering process," he explained.

Saric's arrest is important for both Serbia and Montenegro and represents the high point of the cooperation between the two jusitce ministries, Selakovic remarked.

The operation puts an end to the story of how Saric was hiding along the border between Montenegro and Kosovo or in one of the region's countries, he said.

The police became aware of Saric's crime ring back in 2,000, he pointed out.

The trial will raise and settle many issues, that the original indictment was for drug trafficking, followed by money laundering and then release of classified information, the minister said.

We have reason to suspect information leaks from goverment bodies, he stated.

Montenegro's Justice Minister Dusko Markovic said Montenegro, Serbia and every other country in the region could breathe easier now because they had shown capacity to deal with the threats of organized crime.

He told...