Miloš Medenica was sentenced to a single sentence of ten years and two months in prison on January 28 for creating a criminal organization, the aggravated crime of smuggling, two crimes of unlawful influence through aiding and abetting, and obstruction of evidence. His mother, former President of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on the first instance.
After Medenica's escape, MANS received official notes from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, based on the Law on Free Access to Information (FOI), on the control of compliance with the restraining order for Miloš Medenica.
"It follows from this documentation that the police had been checking his presence at the address where he was supposed to be staying for months. On the other hand, the office of the Director of the Police Directorate has not announced on whose initiative the multi-month surveillance was carried out if the High Court did not request checks, nor who made the decision on the dynamics of the visits, dates and hours of the checks," the statement states.
Instead, as stated by MANS, the Police Directorate only stated that "a Plan of measures and activities was drawn up in order to monitor and act on the imposed supervision measure", and that the dynamics of the visits were determined "in accordance with the capabilities and capacities of the Podgorica Police Department".
"Such a response is not an explanation, but an admission that the police independently planned and conducted surveillance of Miloš Medenica, but still refuses to say who was specifically in charge and responsible for that surveillance," said Milovac.
In his words, the last note is particularly indicative, namely the actions of the police on January 28th, the day when it was determined that Miloš Medenica was not in the apartment where he was supposed to be.
"MANS sought an answer based on whose assessment and whose order the police officers were withdrawn from their positions that day at 2:40 p.m. and sent for a check at an address in Ulcinjska Street. The Office of the Director of the Police Administration did not answer that question. Instead of names, positions, orders and chain of command, they only provided a description of what allegedly happened after the police officers arrived at the scene. Thus, it remains hidden who made the decisions that day and who directed the police's actions immediately before it was determined that Medenica had disappeared," MANS said.
At the same time, the submitted documentation raised serious questions about the manner in which this surveillance was conducted, as the dates on several official notes were allegedly manually altered, while the names of the police officers who made the notes were blacked out.
"When asked by MANS why the dates on official records were manually edited, the Police Directorate now claims that "it is not a matter of backdating the document", but rather that the documents were drawn up on one day and subsequently registered in the records, which is why the date of registration was entered manually," the statement states.
Such an explanation, however, says Milovac, does not remove doubts about the orderliness of record keeping, but rather opens a new question - how is it possible that official records on the surveillance of persons under the measure are not kept properly and in a timely manner, but are subsequently administered and manually reconciled.
When it comes to blacked out names, the Police Directorate claims that this was not done by police officers, but by the competent department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the protection of personal data and free access to information.
"Almost two months after Miloš Medenica's escape, the public still has no answer to the most basic question - who is responsible for the fact that a person under surveillance managed to escape. Apart from the meeting in the Prime Minister's office where the heads of the executive and judicial branches "agreed" that the "system was to blame" for Medenica's escape, to this day we have no adequate answer about institutional responsibility for a security failure of this magnitude," said MANS.
Therefore, as they claim, determining responsibility in this case is not only important because of one escape, but also so that such an incident does not become the rule.
"If, in a case like this, after everything that has been revealed, responsibility is once again hidden behind phrases about procedures, capacities and the system, then the message is sent that surveillance measures depend on arbitrary plans and improvisation, and not on clear rules, risk assessment and precisely defined responsibility," said Milovac.
MANS therefore requests that the competent institutions determine without further delay who created and approved the surveillance plan for Miloš Medenica, based on what assessment the plan was adopted, who determined the dynamics of the controls, who commanded the police actions on January 28th, and who will ultimately bear responsibility for Miloš Medenica's escape.
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