PODGORICA, 26.09.2018. – A criminal group from Montenegro, whose members are not available to the Montenegrin authorities, is behind the attack on Olivera Lakic, the Assistant Director for the Criminal Police Sector in the Police Directorate, Enis Bakovic announced.
“According to the operational information of the police, following the attack on the journalist of Vijesti, Olivera Lakić, a criminal group from the territory of Montenegro planned the attack. However, members of the group are not available to the Montenegrin authorities”, Bakovic said.
Bakovic reiterated that this is for now only operational data and that he is not able to reveal more details. He added that members of this criminal group are not located in the territory of Montenegro, and that all measures and actions for international police cooperation are undertaken in order to investigate these data. Bakovic earlier said that the Montenegrin police cooperated with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to clarify the case.
Olivera Lakic was attacked on May 8 around 9 pm in Podgorica, when an unknown man shot her in front of the building in which she lives. Lakic was wounded in the leg and after two days of hospital stay she was released for home treatment. She was previously a target of attacks and threats because of her articles dealing with cigarette smuggling in Montenegro.
The attack on Lakic is already the fourth case of attacks and threats to journalists in Montenegro in 2018 and the eleventh from the beginning of 2017. The majority of the most serious cases of attacks on journalists still remain unsolved. No one at the Police or the Prosecution was ever held responsible for this.