Police Authority: Persons suspected of stoning Pink M TV identified, used chemicals do not cause permanent damage

Podgorica, Montenegro (27 October 2015) – Regarding the incidents which occurred on Saturday night during the public gathering organised by the Democratic Front in Podgorica, the police have processed 13 persons to the competent authorities, 11 of them suspected of committing offenses under the Law on Public Peace and Order, and two suspected of committing a criminal offense. Out of the said 11 persons, ten were apprehended (a minor was submitted a misdemeanour warrant), whereas Andrija Mandić and Slaven Radunović, MPs, were brought before the Higher State Prosecutor in Podgorica, suspected of committing a criminal offense of inciting to violent change of the constitutional order.

Furthermore, the police have identified two more persons who allegedly stoned police officers and premises of the Pink M TV on Saturday night. Consultations with the competent prosecutor are underway.

When it comes to the masked persons who, in the night of the attack on the police stood directly in front of the protective fence in front of the parliament building, it is incorrect that those persons were sent by the police “to cause trouble." The fact is that those persons were actually enabling Andrija Mandić MP to hold on to the fence on which he had climbed.

As having been concluded at the meeting between representatives of the police and organisers before the event, the security staff was obliged to single out those individuals and surrender them to the police, which did not happen. The police have been making efforts towards identifying the said persons.

After the police have been attacked, police officers, acting according to the law, used chemicals in the amount sufficient to prevent further attacks on the police and the escalation of violence, and to establish stable public peace and order. The chemicals were acquired legally by an authorised person. They were intended for police use and do not cause permanent damage.

As we have already stated, the police have undertaken actions towards establishing all the facts related to the video recording which had been published in the media showing the intervention of the police in relation to a M.M. person, as well as towards establishing the facts in other individual cases referred to by, inter alia, the Council for Civil Control of the Police.

In addition, the Chief of the Police has set up a commission for establishing use of force circumstances, which will assess whether there had been excessive use of force by police officers who are required to submit reports to the commission for every case in which coercive means were used.

POLICE AUTHORITY OF MONTENEGRO