Montenegro’s Attempt to Create Database of Wartime Paramilitaries Fails

Conference about Montenegro's strategy for war crimes investigations in Podgorica. Photo: BIRN/Samir Kajosevic.

"In the past two years, the prosecution requested help from neighbuoring countries in order to make a list of Montenegrin citizens who participated in wars on their soil or were members of paramilitary organisations, but there were few responses," Colan Deretic told a conference in Podgorica about Montenegro's national strategy for war crimes investigation.

We didn't manage to complete the list, even though some people were identified through the UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals [in The Hague]," she added.

In May 2015, the Supreme State Prosecution adopted a state strategy on war crimes investigations, pledging to create a database of Montenegrin citizens involved in paramilitary units and reopen archived investigations.

According to the strategy, the Montenegrin prosecution should review old cases and identify people who had command responsibility for war crimes.

But in the past seven years, Montenegro has launched only two trials of its citizens who were allegedly involved in war crimes committed by the Yugoslav Army or paramilitary units. In December 2019, former Yugoslav Army soldier Vlado Zmajevic was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the murder of four ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo in 1999.

Last September, the Higher Court in Podgorica began the trial of former Bosnian Serb Army soldier Slobodan Pekovic, who is accused of murder and rape in the town of Foca in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, the head of Human Rights Action, which organised Friday's conference, said that the prosecution had failed to proactively investigate war crimes committed by...