(Podgorica, 25 May 2012) – Montenegro’s intelligence agencies, together with organized crime figures, have demonstrated their fear of the energy being awakened by the citizens’ protests. The latest move by these forces was to attempt to link the protest movement to Naser Keljmendi‘s dirty money.
MANS today returned the €200 that were paid by suspected narco-boss Naser Keljmendi into the gyro-account of the protest organizers yesterday (during the fifth mass rally organized in Podgorica).
The bank statement clearly indicates that the depositor was Naser Keljmendi and his “Donata company.” This is a man that currently has several on-going investigations against him in the region for suspected narcotics smuggling, corruption and other criminal actions.
It is clear that this is a classic attempt at entrapment for at least two reasons.
First, Keljmendi is supposedly trying to ‘help’ the protests with €200 while he controls millions of euros and is considered to be one of the largest narco-bosses in the Balkans and in Europe. On the now infamous tape from Safet Kalic’s wedding, it was heard that the then head of the National Security Agency (ANB), Dusko Markovic allegedly assisted Keljmendi in bringing into Montenegro some €500,000 in cash.
Second, Keljmendi is certainly one of the last people that would financially (or in any other way) support protests against organized crime, especially if MANS is involved. We’ve just spend the last year collecting documentation concerning a controversial deal between Keljmendi and the Municipality of Ulcinj, risking our personal safety in order to report him to authorities.
The documentation that MANS submitted to the State Prosecutors’ office demonstrates that Keljmendi paid through the Djukanovic’s family First Bank (Prva Banka) cash payments for the legalization of an building that he built without a permit. The payments were made to the Municipality of Ulcinj, which was then headed by Gzim Hajdinaga. Prosecutors has failed to investigate the source of this money, instead striking a deal with Keljmendi and forcing him to pay a small €10,000 fine. This occured a few days after the director of the Federal Police in Bosnia, Dragan Lukac, stated that Keljmendi would soon end up behind bars because of his links to organized crime.
Everyone knows that Keljmendi can assist only his protectors, who aren’t the citizens of Montenegro, nor MANS, but elements of the captured state apparatus that he finances, that frees him from criminal liability, and that gave him a passport and then denied it when we uncovered a small part of the criminal acts that he committed. His partners are those who allowed him to bring cash into Montenegro and to launder the money here, while he financed their campaigns in return.
These facts lead us to conclude that these infamous €200 deposited into the public account of the protests movement is not the ‘help’ of Keljmendi for the country’s free citizens, but an attempt to compromise the movement. Naser Keljmendi represents everything against which we’re struggling against and the core of the reason that we’re protesting in the streets. We want to sever the links between the state and organized crime that has occupied Montenegro and captured its institutions, including those institutions that should be fighting against organized crime (like the ANB).
In alliance with the institutions of this state, organized crime has destroyed our resources, devastated our economy, while the entire country is being used as a base for laundering dirty money accumulated through criminal activities. A clean break with organized crime is one of the central demands of not only the citizens who are protesting on Montenegro’s streets, but also of the European Union and other relevant international institutions.
This transparent attempt at compromising the protest movement demonstrates the very real panic that has seized the regime and what the future holds for it. It is now increasingly clear that the current elite, as presently constituted, can no longer play a role in Montenegro’s future. The fear of the ruling elite and its army from the energy that has been unleashed on the streets is totally justified, since we’ve promised that we won’t stop offering resistance until Montenegro is completely free.
We’re calling on all honest people to assist in organizing the protests as much as they can, but we don’t need money from people like Keljmendi and his friends.
There are plenty of honest individuals and firms that are doing as much as they can, though we still need more money and resources since these protests are going to last a while.
Once again, we repeat: we won’t step back from our central demand for a change in government and our call to all citizens to refuse subsidizing corruption through their utility bills (especially after the increased levies voted through in parliament yesterday).
Let the government work on returning into the state budget the stolen money that has been deposited in private bank accounts. Let them arrest criminals whose property should be confiscated and use these funds to fill gaps in the budget instead of racketeering the country’s residents.
Thanks to the free citizens and brave individuals who’ve enabled us to continue, we will not back down in our struggle for a free Montenegro and for institutions that aren’t interlaced with organized crime.
They will not succeed in scaring us or buying us out on the road that we’ve started on, a road towards a free Montenegro!
