VZCZCXRO8110
RR RUEHPOD
DE RUEHPOD #0002/01 0031526
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 031526Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY PODGORICA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0022
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0005
RUEHPOD/AMEMBASSY PODGORICA 0024

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PODGORICA 000002 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KCRM CVIS SOCI MW
SUBJECT: SOLE SUSPECT ACQUITTED IN 2004 MURDER OF OPPOSTION EDITOR 
 
REF: A. A) 2004 BELGRADE 1149, 1172 
 
     ¶B. B) 2005 BELGRADE 1741 
 
SUMMARY AND COMMENT 
 
------------------- 
 
 
 
¶1. (U) Damir Mandic, accused of taking part in the May 2004 
murder (Ref A) of the editor-in-chief of the opposition 
Podgorica based daily "Dan", Dusko Jovanovic, was acquitted on 
December 27 by the Higher Court in Podgorica. Mandic was accused 
of, along with other unknown persons, killing Jovanovic on May 
27, 2004 at 23:45 with an automatic weapon fired from a car 
while Jovanovic was leaving the Dan editorial offices in 
Podgorica. Dan is an opposition daily which sharply criticized 
former PM Milo Djukanovic. Representatives of the opposition 
have used Jovanovic's murder as another club with which to 
hammer the Government, claiming it was politically motivated and 
that Montenegrin authorities have covered up the involvement of 
senior officials. End summary. 
 
 
 
¶2. (SBU) Comment: The murder of editor Jovanovic, and the trial 
of Mandic, have been highly politicized since the very first 
day. Additionally, the judges and courts of Montenegro are 
generally held in low esteem, and considered to be subject to 
impermissible outside influences. Both of these observations 
explain the sharp reactions to the acquittal; neither 
necessarily invalidates the legitimacy of the judge's ruling. 
With tempers and passions running hot on this case, no local 
observer has commented that the evidence never conclusively puts 
Mandic at the scene and time of the crime, nor does the evidence 
demonstrate that Mandic was aware of the intended purpose of the 
weapons and vehicle.  Mandic may know more than he is admitting 
on the record; on the other hand, Mandic may have been just one 
of the "usual suspects" in a case where the GoM felt it had to b 
seen as doing something. But the rush to arrest to arrest just 
one member of what is claimed to be a larger conspiracy is as 
inexplicable as the apparent reluctance to arrest any other 
individuals implicated. 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) At this comparatively late date, the facts of the 
Jovanovic murder -- who was involved, and the motivations -- may 
never come out.  Jovanovic was a controversial character; not 
only was he a leading critic of the Government and then PM 
Djukanovic, his business dealings ran the gamut of Montenegro 
society, including contacts with the violent if small organized 
crime strata.  Nor can more mundane motivations for his murder 
be ruled out.  To paraphrase, the recent trial of Damir Mandic 
again demonstrates that hard cases make for bad law enforcement. 
 A more solid police and prosecution case would have allowed for 
justified criticism of an acquittal, but the holes in the 
evidence were sufficient to create reasonable doubts about 
whether the Government had proven its case against Mandic. End 
comment. 
 
 
 
Crime and No Punishment 
 
----------------------- 
 
 
 
¶4. (U) The police and prosecution have, to date, only actively 
pursued one suspect in the May 2004 murder of opposition 
newspaper editor Dusko Jovanovic.  One week after the murder, 
Damir Mandic was arrested for complicity in Jovanovic's murder. 
While forensic evidence connected Mandic to the 
instrumentalities of the crime, and Mandic had been associated 
with Jovanovic prior to the murder, the trial judge 
(coincidentally also named Mandic, but no relation) ruled on 
December 27 that the evidence was insufficient to sustain 
charges that Mandic was involved in the planning (or 
implementation) of the murder. Mandic was convicted of unrelated 
charges in a 2002 kidnapping. 
 
 
 
Family and Opposition Embittered 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶5. (U) The family of the late editor assessed the verdict as an 
 
PODGORICA 00000002  002 OF 004 
 
 
"unprecedented shame of the judiciary. Jovanovic's brother said 
that the family had long anticipated an acquittal, saying that 
the judge did all he could to hush up the murder. Jovanovic's 
widow announced she would appeal the ruling to numerous 
international courts. Jovanovic's colleagues from the daily 
"Dan" called it "scandalous," adding their view that enough 
evidence had been presented during the trial for Mandic to be 
convicted and calling upon the public to protest against the 
"shameful" decision. 
 
 
 
¶6. (U) The opposition parties jointly stated that the verdict 
showed that Montenegrin judiciary is corrupted and that "law and 
justice are sold for dirty money." The opposition walked out of 
the parliament session during the debate on the 2007 Budget in 
protest, and moved for an emergency session of Parliament to 
discuss the case as well as 27 unresolved murders. They seconded 
the call for public protests; none have appeared so far. 
(Comment: The winter holidays and cold, wet weather have likely 
played a role in muting public reaction. End comment.) 
 
 
 
¶7. (U) The Ruling coalition representatives repeated their 
support for the state institutions, indicating that the request 
for a parliamentary inquiry would be rejected. One exception was 
the head of the Montenegrin police, Veselin Veljovic, who 
defended the work of his department and assessed the Court's 
decision as an obstruction of the work of the police and other 
state bodies. 
 
 
 
Prosecutor To Appeal Acquittal Verdict 
 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶8. (U) Montenegrin Supreme State Prosecutor Vesna Medenica has 
announced an appeal to the Appellate Court because of acquital 
verdict.  Medenica said the prosecution performed its job in a 
professional manner by providing "evidence of such reliability 
that has never before been reviewed by a court in Montenegro." 
She dismissed the accusations by the opposition about "corrupted 
prosecution" and called their representatives to prove those 
allegations. 
 
 
 
BACKGROUND: NEWSPAPER EDITOR MURDERED 
 
------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶9. (U) Note: Following detail from the criminal proceedings is 
provided for visa lookout purposes, and to shed light on the 
current state of Montenegro's ability to prosecute organized 
crime. End note. Damir Mandic was arrested on June 3, 2004, on 
charges of participating, along with other unknown perpetrators, 
in the deliberate and planned murder of Dusko Jovanovic and his 
bodyguard Milorad Mirovic on May 27, 2004, in Podgorica. 
According to the bill of indictment, a group plotting to murder 
Dusko Jovanovic had on February 6, 2004 called Veselin Vuceljic 
from Mandic's mobile phone in order to buy a blue VW Golf 3 
without license plate numbers (which is stated as being the 
vehicle from which Jovanovic was shot). The windows of that 
vehicle were tinted in a car service shop owned by Uros 
Marcetic, where also the fake license plates were placed on it. 
Mandic is accused of providing two automatic rifles (type Crvena 
Zastava - Red Flag) and putting them in the Golf, which was 
parked  in the vicinity of Jovanovic's car Peugeot 605. A group 
was waiting for Jovanovic to come out of Dan's editorial offices 
and then fired 16 shots at him, shortly after which he died. 
 
 
 
CSI Podgorica 
 
------------- 
 
 
 
¶10. (U) The Deputy of the Higher State Prosecutor, Ljiljana 
Klikovac, who handled the indictment, stated that forensic 
experts from Wiesbaden, Germany concluded that gunpowder 
particles from the shells collected at the crime scene 
correspond to particles found on the left and right sleeves of 
 
PODGORICA 00000002  003 OF 004 
 
 
the defendant. Also, the defendant's DNA samples and 
fingerprints, mixed with those of others, were found in the Golf 
3, on the second automatic rifle (found in the car but not used 
for firing at Jovanovic), and on an empty can of "Red Bull" 
found, some days after the murder, in the vicinity of the Golf. 
The Deputy Prosecutor announced that charges will be also 
pressed against witnesses who tried to provide an alibi for 
Mandic, by stating that at the time of murder they were with 
him. She stated that "those claims and attempts to provide a 
false alibi for Damir Mandic" were refuted by statements of a 
telecommunication expert, who, on the basis of the mobile 
telephone listings, established that the defendant's location at 
the time of murder was other than that stated by defendant's 
witnesses.  The Deputy Prosecutor also put forward that Mandic 
had suddenly changed his travels plan: instead of traveling to 
Paris on June 5 and 6, 2004, for which he had reserved air 
tickets, he suddenly left for Belgrade, knowing that the police 
were looking for him and that his brother had been apprehended 
for questioning. 
 
 
 
Defense Lawyers Allege Police Misconduct 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶11. (U) The lawyers for Damir Mandic, Zeljko Jocic and Velibor 
Markovic, stated that "key evidence", namely the "Red Bull" 
beverage container and an empty plastic bag of snacks, were 
furtively taken from Mandic's personal vehicle (confiscated by 
police after the murder) and later planted near the place where 
Golf was parked. They added that by comparison of the official 
police minutes with notes kept by the experts of the Forensic 
Institute of Wiesbaden it can be seen that "those pieces of 
evidence" were not among those originally submitted to the lab. 
 
 
 
Purported Accomplices Questioned, Released 
 
------------------------------------------ 
 
 
 
¶12. (U) During the investigation police informally accused Vuk 
Vulevic and Armin Musa Osmanagic being accomplices in the 
murder, however, criminal charges against them have never been 
brought. (Note: Both are also suspects in the August 2005 murder 
of Montenegrin police chief Scekic - Ref B.)  The police 
investigation failed to disclose possible motives for the murder 
or those who had masterminded it. According to the press, police 
built the case on the statement by Damir Mandic made immediately 
after the arrest in which he supposedly disclosed to police all 
details relevant to the murder. Mandic denied his purported 
statement to police and defended himself during the trial by 
remaining silent. 
 
 
 
Family Asked for Dismissal of Judge 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶13. (U) The trial lasted for about two years, with Judge Radovan 
Mandic replacing Radomir Ivanovic. The family of Dusko Jovanovic 
accused the ruling elite in Montenegro of murdering Jovanovic, 
proposing that the key political figures be summoned to the 
court, which was not accepted. Family and lawyers of Dusko 
Jovanovic accused Judge Mandic of favoring the defendant and 
cited his connections to previous verdicts of a "suspicious 
nature."  Their motions to have Judge Mandic dismissed were 
rejected. 
 
 
 
Judge Mandic Rules Evidence Insufficient on Murder Charge 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
 
 
¶14. (U) On December 27, Judge Mandic ruled there was no reliable 
evidence that Damir Mandic participated in the murder of Dusko 
Jovanovic. He explained that there was no valid evidence that 
Mandic had ordered and bought a VW Golf 3 using his mobile 
phone, or that he tinted the windows of the car. He added that 
 
PODGORICA 00000002  004 OF 004 
 
 
there is no reliable evidence that he purchased two automatic 
rifles. Speaking about the location of Damir Mandic in the time 
of Jovanovic's murder, Judge Mandic stated that there were only 
presumptions that he was in the Golf 3 at that time. According 
to judge's explanation, several witnesses have confirmed 
Mandic's alibi. 
 
 
 
Conviction for Kidnapping 
 
------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶15. (U) Mandic was sentenced to two years in jail for the 2002 
kidnapping of Miodrag Nikolic, who coincidentally was the target 
of an attempted assassination in late December in Serbia. The 
trial was joined to that on charges of plotting to murder 
Jovanovic. Mandic was released on December 27 from the prison 
unit in Spuz, credited with time served. 
FERRILL