Serbia has arrested several people allegedly involved in a mysterious plot to stage attacks in neighbouring Montenegro during recent parliamentary elections.
During voting on October 16th, Montenegro's security services announced the arrest of 20 Serbs who allegedly planned to attack state buildings and officials including veteran prime minister Milo Djukanovic.
Montenegro said the conspiracy was led by Bratislav Dikic, a former commander of a Serbian special police unit, who was dismissed from his post in 2013 for alleged criminal activity.
Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic was initially sceptical of the plot claim, saying that it was "curious that this is happening today" but deeming it "better for me to bite my tongue" than comment further.
On Monday evening, however, Mr Vucic announced that Serbia had arrested several suspects and gathered “irrefutable evidence that some people . . . monitored the movement of the prime minister of Montenegro on a daily basis, every second, and were telling other people who were supposed to act on it”.
Mr Vucic said the evidence included €125,000 in cash and uniforms that were apparently to be used in the attacks.
Montenegro’s security services said the plotters intended to storm the country’s parliament dressed as local police officers on election night, and take Mr Djukanovic captive.
‘Set up’
Mr Vucic did not give details of the people involved in the alleged plot, but said they were “certainly not those who were arrested down there [in Montenegro]”, and that they had no connection to the Montenegrin or Serbian states.
Montenegrin special prosecutor Milivoje Katnic said the country had narrowly escaped “being shrouded in black. Unprecedented terror, bloodshed, was planned.”
Several of those arrested in Montenegro have already been released, however, and Mr Dikic insists he was in the country to visit a monastery, and was set up by local police who planted evidence in his car, including a mobile phone and keys to a house that contained weapons.
Mr Katnic’s comments have also deepened mystery around the case.
According to the Balkan Insight news service, he said the seized weapons had swiftly been destroyed “at a safe location in another country” and that information on the plot came “the way we have always received it, with the help of God”.
Opposition parties claim the attack plot is a fabrication by Mr Djukanovic and his allies to maintain their grip on power and discredit his critics, who he accuses of being in the pay of Russia and Serb nationalists.
The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), led by Mr Djukanovic, won the election but without a majority, leaving Montenegro in limbo as coalition talks get under way.
Mr Djukanovic has ruled his country for more than 25 years and vehemently denies allegations of corruption and links to organised crime.
"The effective action by our security services [in this case] is the best confirmation that the reforms of that sector of the Montenegrin state have given excellent results on the path towards Nato and the EU," Danica Nikolic, a spokeswoman for the DPS, told The Irish Times.
