Today, charges were filed against police officers Petar Lazović and Jugoslav Raičević for torturing Milo Jovanović and Jovan Mrvaljević in December 2020.

The indictment was filed by state prosecutor Biljana Pavličić from the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica.

Back in January 2021, four days after they were tortured, Jovanović and Mrvaljević made public allegations about the psychological and physical abuse they suffered in the article entitled “Two men accuse SBPOKK [Anti-Organisaed Crime Service] of torture, the police claim that they were planning a murder?”, which was published by portal Vijesti. Two days later, they also filed a criminal complaint with the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica

However, the investigation in this case was not effective until the Libertas portal published evidence of torture downloaded from the SKY application in March 2023, in the form of messages that members of the Police Directorate’s Department for Special Operational Support were allegedly exchanging with members of an organised criminal group, the so-called Kavač clan.

The HRA has already warned that the principle of urgency was violated in this case, with serious consequences. The hesitation to urgently investigate the reported police officers and order the necessary expert examination is incomprehensible. Even though Jovanović identified Petar Lazović as one of the torturers in the very first statement he gave to the prosecution, Lazović was heard as a witness only seven months after the alleged torture, and as a suspect almost three years later, in November 2023.

In this sense, in his opinion from 10 March 2024,  the Ombudsman concluded that the investigation of prosecutor Pavličić was not conducted urgently and thoroughly, and that no adequate participation of the victim in the proceedings had been ensured. It was then that the State Prosecutor’s Office was ordered to take measures and actions that correspond to the international standard of effective investigation, with the obligation to report on the actions taken.

We are pleased with the fact that the later intensification of the investigation led to concrete developments in the form of charges. Now comes the phase of confirmation of the indictment.

The defendants Lazović and Raičević are in custody on charges of organised crime.