Around 30 Montenegrin citizens were detained last night at Belgrade Airport after disembarking from a flight that had arrived from Podgorica around midnight, following a delay of several hours.
According to information provided to Vijesti by the outlet’s editor, Dushan Cicmil, and his legal representative, attorney Miroje Jovanović, the passengers exclusively men holding Montenegrin documents had their passports confiscated and were placed in a separate room without any explanation for the restriction of their movement.
According to the newspaper’s findings, the 28 passengers were taken to a separate room where several other Montenegrin citizens who had arrived from Barcelona were also being held.
They were reportedly called in groups of five and transferred to another room for additional checks.
At nearly the same time the editorial team contacted Cicmil, who confirmed that passengers were being separated for additional screening, one of the passengers informed the journalist that attorney Miroje Jovanović was also on the flight. The journalist subsequently contacted him for legal assistance.
“Around 2 a.m., Vijesti journalist Dushan Cicmil called me and informed me that he had also been separated for additional checks without being told the reason. I asked him to notify the arrival of a lawyer, but he was told they could not pass through the border control section. I returned to that section, showed the officer my lawyer’s ID, and requested to speak with my client. When they told me I could not pass, I asked them to call the shift supervisor, and then I contacted the duty prosecutor to clarify why the movement of my client and other passengers was being restricted. Without any explanation, after about ten minutes the passengers began to be released,” said Jovanović.
The lawyer stressed that even before Cicmil contacted him, while passing through the gate, he had asked police officers why only men with Montenegrin documents were being singled out, and was told that they had a so-called “instruction.”
“This was confirmed by the fact that they were released immediately. If the instruction had been relevant, they would have had six hours the duration of the flight delay to check everyone on the passenger list. They clearly tried to repeat the same story as in Tivat,” Jovanović said.
Cicmil told Vijesti last night that Montenegrin citizens who had arrived in Belgrade from Barcelona said their flight had originally been scheduled for Podgorica, but was first diverted to Pristina Airport, where they were unable to land, and therefore ended up in the Serbian capital.
