PODGORICA, 04.12.2025 – Almost seven and a half years after the attempted murder, journalist Olivera Lakić testified for the first time before a panel of the High Court in Podgorica, presided over by Judge Radovan Vlaović.
Before the court, Lakić repeated her earlier statements that she believes the motive for the attack on the night of 8 May 2018, in front of the building where she lives, was exclusively her journalistic work.
The Special State Prosecutor’s Office has identified 14 persons as members of a criminal organization that organized and carried out the attack on the journalist, killed Miodrag Kruščić, and smuggled 554 kg of the narcotic drug marijuana. The indictment was filed in December 2023, and the trial before the High Court began in December last year; after several postponements and a change in the judicial panel, it started again in March this year, from when Judge Vlaović has been presiding over the panel.
The journalist recalled that the main topics of her investigative work were organized crime and corruption, and, when asked by the defense whether she had dealt specifically with any of the accused, she repeated that she had not.
Lakić said that she is joining the criminal prosecution of the accused, explaining that in the earlier course of the proceedings she did not do so because she was cautious due to her previous experience with the prosecution in this case. In the meantime, she studied the case file in detail, but also checked it through her journalistic work, which is why she decided to join the criminal prosecution.
Defence lawyer Marko Radović was also interested in whether any face identification procedure had ever been carried out before the prosecutors, but she stated that it had not and that she thinks her description would not have been helpful.
The defense also requested audio-visual recording of the testimony. Lakić and Special State Prosecutor Nataša Bošković did not object to this, but the court rejected the motion due to a lack of technical capacity.
Journalist Jelena Jovanović also testified about the events that took place on 8 May 2018.
“We were sitting in a restaurant near the newsroom and Olja told me that she had a feeling something was going to happen to her and asked me to write down three names – (Zoran) ‘Ćoćo’ Bećirović, Enes Baković and Boris Raonić – because she had information that they were putting a target on her,” Jovanović said.
Editor-in-chief of Dan Mladen Milutinović also repeated before the court his earlier statement that at the moment of the attack he was in a nearby restaurant and that he approached the scene and saw Lakić lying wounded.
“Her family members and help arrived shortly afterwards,” Milutinović said.
During the hearing, Lakić complained that one of the accused, Darko Lalović, was staring into her eyes and smirking at her, to which Lalović replied that this was not true and that he had not even noticed her. He stated that he had “nothing to do” with Lakić and that he had “lost a lot because of this process”.
Lalović, as well as the other accused, then began to grumble and heckle, after which Judge Vlaović removed them from the courtroom.
According to the indictment of Special Prosecutor Nataša Bošković, it was Cetinje resident Filip Knežević who shot at Lakić in front of the entrance to the building where she lives on 8 May 2018. According to the indictment, he was driven that night by Filip Bešović. In the surveillance of the journalist, which, the prosecution claims, lasted at least a week, in addition to Knežević, Goran Rakočević, Luka Bulatović and Veselin Bubanja also took part.
For the criminal offence of grievous bodily harm committed to the detriment of Olivera Lakić, the absolute statute of limitations expires on 8 May 2028.