Montenegro Security Service Probes Destroyed Documents on Illegal Spying

National Security Agency boss Dejan Vuksic, meeting with Montenegrin Deputy PM Dritan Abazovic. Photo:Photo: Government of Montenegro

"There is evidence … that part of the documentation was destroyed - files on secret data collection made without a previous decision in accordance with the law," Vuksic told the daily newspaper Vijesti.

Media reported that ANB officers were destroying important documentation about illegal and unauthorized spying activities on January 19.

By law, surveillance and wiretapping is possible only by order of the ANB chief or the State Prosecutor. The same law states that documents on surveillance can be destroyed also only on the order of the agency chief or the State Prosecutor.

"We are collecting information and evidence related to this and other illegalities in the work some agency officials. There is a well founded suspicion that their actions grossly violated the constitution," Vuksic said.

Montenegro recently saw an abrupt change of regime, ending the decades-long rule of the Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS.

In parliamentary elections held on August 30, 2020, three opposition blocs won a slender majority of 41 of the 81 seats in parliament, ousting the DPS.

On December 17, the new government dismissed the previous National Security Agency boss, Dejan Perunicic, who was close to the former regime.

The same day, Vuksic, a lawyer and an official of the pro-Serbian "For the Future of Montenegro" coalition, was elected acting head. The new government announced a competition for a new agency boss in February.

The agency has faced much controversy over the last three decades. Months before his own resignation in late 2014, the agency's then head, Boro Vucinic, conceded...

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