Aleksandar Sindjelic’s hearing in the Special Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica lasted for twelve hours. Sindjelic is cooperative witnesses in the case of attempted coup on 16 October 2016.
Drazen Medojevic, the attorney of Mihailo Cadjenovic, one of the suspects and DF leader Andrija Mandic’s driver, said that Sindjelic’s testimony was illogical and contradictory.
However, he could not tell reporters what Sindjelic had said due to gagging order.
“He presented himself to have skills he has no capacity of. This is a result of a bad scenario and he’s a bad actor who aimed to compromise DF and failed. His statement has nothing to do with my client. His testimony cannot provide criminal and legal liability of Cadjenovic,” Medojevic said.
Branislav Dikic’s attorney, Milan Petrovic, said that his client did not attend the hearing although he had asked to be there.
“This is a violation of the right to defence,” he said.
As for Sindjelic’s testimony, Petrovic said it was a 33 page long material.
“Sindjelic confirmed that Serbian citizens did not intend to overthrow the government in Montenegro, that they did not know what would happen and what could have happened at the protest because there had been no protest,” he said.
Asked whether Sindjelic associated anyone personally with the terrorist attempt, Petrovic says:
“He did not associate himself with the event because he was not in Montenegro then… He believes that there is a chase against him as well and that he is a man who came here to shed light on the whole thing… He did not mention names of anyone from Montenegro and did not talk about political parties,” Petrovic added.
DF leaders Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic failed to appear in the Special State Prosecutor’s Office on Monday morning for the Sindjelic’s hearing.
As a reminder, Sindjelic’s hearing was scheduled for last Monday, but it was postponed because Mandic and Knezevic were not familiar with the case files. According to the prosecutor’s order on investigation expansion, the DF leaders were a part of the logistics network, whose task was to violently overthrow the government.
The SDT order, which was amended on 7 March, states that early last year Mandic and Knezevic became members of the criminal organisation formed by two Russian agents Eduard Shirokov (Shishmakov) and Vladimir Popov at the territory of Montenegro, Serbia and Russia. The group’s aim was to topple the government in Montenegro.
