Human Rights Action (HRA) expected the State Prosecutor’s Office of Montenegro to publish information about activities taken to date to investigate three indepent criminal complaints of particularly brutal torture by police officers, filed a month and a half ago by (1) Jovan Grujičić, the only person accused for bomb attacks on the „Grand“ bar and the house of civil servant Duško Golubović, (2) Benjamin Mugoša, who was treated as a suspect in that investigation, and (3) M.B. who is still being treated as a witness. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the European Comission, and ambassadors of the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the coordinator of the UN system in Montenegro, expressed concern and demanded that an effective investigation be conducted in accordance with the international standards.

According to the family of Jovan Grujičić, one of the persons who reported torture by criminalistic police officers, he was not subjected to forensic medical examination of bodily injuries, although competent State Prosecutor is obliged to provide such medical examination as soon as possible, according to the european standard of effective torture investigation, as well as the Instruction of proceedings on reports of criminal offenses of abuse and torture (Tu.no. 10/19), which the Supreme State Prosecutor, Ivica Stanković, issued to all state prosecutors in Montenegro. A year ago he instructed them to, in case of reports of ill-treatment „also when there are no visible injuries“ order appropriate forensic medical examination of persons who are alleged victims of abuse.

Although the competent basic state prosecutors ordered forensic medical examination of bodily injuries immediately upon a receipt of the reports of the two persons reporting torture, M.B. and Benjamin Mugoša, on May 26 and May 28, such an examination had not been ordered for Jovan Grujičić, according to his family, who had been deprived of liberty since May 26. His father Budimir reported the abuse of his son to the Senior State Prosecutor Suzana Milić on June 4, and Jovan himself reported the abuse to the Basic State Prosecutor Snežana Šišević on June 24, when his father also filed a complaint to the Internal Control Department of the Police.

HRA considers that the fact that forensic medical examination of Grujicic’s bodily injuries was not determined in a timely manner represents a serious professional omission in conducting this investigation for which someone in prosecution should be held responsible. This is all the more because Grujičić is a psychiatric patient, who was forcibly taken from hospital treatment. HRA will require all members of the Prosecutorial Council to adress this issue.

HRA informed acting Supreme State Prosecutor, Ivica Stanković, in a letter dated 15 July, of the stated concern and asked him to check whether and when the forensic medical examination of Jovan Grujičić was ordered, because according to the information we have about the case, it had not been done. To this day, Mr. Stanković has not responded to that letter, nor has the State Prosecutor’s Office informed the public what actions it took in that investigation.