PODGORICA, 31.07.2019. – At a press conference on February 19th, the police administration claimed that they solved the attempted murder of journalist Lakic. Despite claims of the Police administration that Filip Besovic shot Olivera Lakic, journalist at Vijesti, Enis Bakovic, Assistant Director of Police administration said that “he never claimed that Filip Besovic shot at Lakic”.
“I have never claimed that Filip Besovic was the direct perpetrator of the attack on Olivera Lakic, but that he organized a criminal group which followed the journalist Olivera Lakic, and then in front of the apartment in which she lived she’s been wounded. So, I have never claimed that Filip Bešović, now the accused, has been a direct perpetrator of the attack”, he said answering to the question posed to the Veselin Veljovic, Director of the Police administration.
He added that the length of the investigation was not an issue for the Police administration, but he is convinced that the indictment will come.
At a press conference on February 19, the Police administration claimed that they solved the attempted murder of journalist Lakic.
Milovan Pavicevic, Chief of the Security Center Podgorica then said that “causing serious bodily injuries in the form of a gunshot wound on the right foot of the journalist Olivera Lakic were committed in the manner that the suspect and the organizer of this criminal group F. B. with certain members of his group, on 08.05.2018. followed the injured Olivera Lakic from the moment she left the newsroom od daily Vijesti, to her apartment in St. Petar Cetinjski Boulevard, where he waited for her to leave the vehicle and go to the entrance of the building, in order to approach her in an insidious manner and, from a pistol of an unknown brand, causing her a severe bodily injury in the area of the right leg”.
Pavicevic, who also attended the Veljovic’s press conference on 25.07.2019, did not try to explain whether Besovic tried to kill journalist Lakic.
The conference, on which the results of the investigation were announced, took place two days before the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn arrived in Montenegro, who repeated several times that he expected results in that investigation, and that the stagnation in that case may jeopardize Montenegro’s negotiations with the EU.
After conference, the police and the prosecution did not inform the public whether they knew who ordered wounding of Lakic, nor did the Prosecution in Podgorica explain the reasons for the decision to re-qualify the attempt of murder in an easier form of criminal offense – causing serious physical injury.
Journalist Olivera Lakic has been a target of attack for years and was wounded on May 8, 2018.
According to the Order for conducting the investigation of the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office, which is signed by five prosecutors, it is still unknown who attempted to kill her.
The document says that a criminal offense was committed at the detriment of a journalist – a serious physical injury, but also noted that it was committed by Filip Besovic personally or through one of the members of the criminal group he organized.
Besovic said after the arrest that he had nothing to do with wounding of Lakic and that he never saw the journalist of “Vijesti” newspaper.
This document explains that the group, suspected of killing Miodrag Kruscic, was discovered when searching the apartments they used and when they found the weapons, silicone masks, wigs, false mustaches and beards, tools for making explosive devices, money, JPS tapers “And Information related to the committed crimes to the detriment of Miodrag Kruscic and Olivera Lakic”, but it does not explain what are those information and how the weapons and objects found are related to these two cases.
That’s roughly everything they say about wounding of Lakic at 17 pages of the order signed by prosecutors Vesna Jovicevic, Suzana Milic, Maja Jovanovic, Milos Soskic and Tatjana Begovic.
Since February 2011, Lakic has been a target of harassment and threats, and later a physical attack. Threats and attacks began after a series of her texts about the tobacco factory “Tara” in Mojkovac and smuggling cigarettes.
Olivera Lakic is the winner of the “International Women of Courage Award” awarded by the US State Department.