“Russian coup” in Montenegro turned out to be a shameful fake – American magazine
The story of the so-called Russian-backed coup attempt in Montenegro in 2016 "becomes more absurd the more it is analyzed."
The influential American magazine National Interest writes about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The alleged coup organizer, Sasa Sindjelic, was a high school student who was wanted for murder in Croatia and who had not been to Montenegro for fifteen years. However, the GRU allegedly commissioned such a fringe figure to organize a coup against a regime that had been in power for some three decades.
Not surprisingly, in March 2019, Sindjelik completely retracted his testimony, saying that he gave it after twenty-three days of solitary confinement and numerous beatings,” the article says.
Another “coup organizer” Mirko Velimirović also refused to testify in April 2017. Afterwards, he was involved in a serious car accident and decided to testify again.
“However, under cross-examination his evidence quickly fell apart. Velimirović, for example, was unable to identify the guns he allegedly bought (and which were never produced) and also failed to identify the mysterious Albanian black dealer from whom he allegedly bought the guns,” the article says.
The author calls the “Russian coup d’etat” a “third-rate Balkan cabaret”, the participants of which were elderly and sick people.
“The trial culminated in the testimony of an alleged coup plotter (a drug addict in real life) who was tasked with breaking windows and throwing Molotov cocktails at the headquarters of a political party but was given the wrong address.
During confused testimony, the alleged conspirator said: “Actually, I don’t even know what I should have done. The only people I know here work for the government,” the article says.
The author is surprised that, given the supposedly serious danger, neither the Minister of Internal Affairs, nor the Minister of Defense, nor the National Security Council of Montenegro were informed. Montenegrin officials did not even inform NATO, although the alleged coup was supposedly aimed at preventing the country from joining this alliance.
As the Minister of Internal Affairs of Montenegro noted, “not a single meeting of the government or the National Security Council was held, the president of the state did not comment on anything, and the prime minister said that he knew nothing about it. . . I must admit that this is a very specific “coup d’etat.”
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.