Svetozar Marović

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday Serbia would provide a well-grounded response to what his Montenegrin counterpart Jakov Milatovic had told him about the issue of an extradition of former Serbia and Montenegro president Svetozar Marovic from Serbia to Montenegro.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic (L) and Mayor of Budva Milo Bozovic (R) at a meeting in Budva. Photo: Photo: Government of Montenegro

The Special State Prosecution said the arrest of Bozovic and unnamed persons from Budva, Cetinje and the capital Podgorica, was organised with the support of the European police agency EUROPOL.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that her Montenegrin counterpart, Dritan Abazovic, had "again drawn her attention" to the issue of the former President of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006 who is avoiding justice in Montenegro and hiding in Serbia, but gave no details.

Deputy Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazovic said that he expected that relations between Belgrade and Podgorica would improve after Serbia helped Montenegro with vaccines, but such scenario did not happen due to some political events in Montenegro that caused much more attention in Serbia, for no good reason.

President of Serbia and Montenegro Svetozar Marovic at a Council of Europe session. Photo: EPA/BARTLOMIEJ ZBOROWSKI POLAND OUT

Svetozar Marovic, ex-president of the former State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and once a close associate to the current Montenegrin President, Milo Djukanovic, has for years hidden from justice in Serbia, avoiding serving a prison sentence at home of three years and nine months for corruption.

Vui said that pressures on Serbia on the issue of Kosovo and Metohija were expected, as well as that the decision of the Montenegrin parliament would still be discussed and that Serbia would always stand up for the interests of its people in Montenegro.

Montenegro's Minister of Justice, Human and Minority Rights, Vladimir Leposavic, told Vijesti on Sunday that  the country had received no news from Belgrade about its demand for the extradition of the former president of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic.

As he said, he suggested to him that there was no need to hurry with signing the contract with the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Abazovic claims that there is no problem with the agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church being signed, but he believes that it should be analyzed before that and the interests of Montenegro should be clearly protected in it.

And that's not all.

The sum of evidence collected by two independent experts, sources involved in the project and via documents reviewed by the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Montenegro, CIN-CG, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and the weekly Monitor, indicate that WTE overcharged by millions of euros for the construction of the one completed treatment plant.