Outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic is frantically trying to keep control – through urgent and secret systemic changes in the National Security Agency – if he is not given the opportunity to be formally the key man of the security sector in future political combinations.
Pobjeda’s sources say that by amending the law on the National Security Agency, Abazovic intended to protect and strengthen the positions of his own people in the service, but this action was negatively evaluated in Brussels, so the outgoing prime minister decided to intervene to systematise it.
URGENT ACTION
The systematisation act is carried out in the strictest secrecy. The document is being handled by Acting Director Boris Milić and Inspector General Artan Kurti, with a few confidential people, our sources claim.
According to them, “not even most of the chiefs” have been involved in the systematisation process.
It is very possible that this action will be on the agenda of tomorrow’s government meeting, Pobjeda’s sources fear.
The practice, they explain, is that the systematisation is carried out when the law is amended.
It is not recorded that only a new systematisation is being done, because why change it when there is no amendment to the law on the National Security Agency, when nothing has changed in terms of competences, powers, etc…? That is why in Brussels they tried to get the green light to amend the law. Milić, Elvir Amidović and others lobbied. They did not get a positive opinion and were not allowed to enter into this story, our sources say.
Boris Bato Milić and Elvir Amidović made themselves available to Vukšić (pro-Russian and pro-Serbian staff) immediately after his arrival at the head of the ANB in December 2020, and then, when it became certain that he would be replaced, they offered their services Abazovic.
Vukšić had also planned for months before his dismissal to use the Systemisation Act to secure positions for his own people, but he failed.
Pobjeda’s sources fear that, unlike Vukšić, the outgoing prime minister will succeed in implementing the plan.
They will bring and hire their own people, deploy them where they need to, remove those who are in the way… Checks and tests are already being done for the new ones who need to be hired. More than 100 people are planning to bring – warn the sources of Pobjeda, experienced operatives of the Agency, who through Pobjeda have been warning about Russian influence in our secret service for almost two years since Vukšić was appointed its head.
Their sources told them that “it’s a shame what kind of personnel solutions there are”.
They brought in Aleksandar Joksimovic, who could not have passed the vetting process under normal circumstances, to the KOZ (Counter Intelligence Protection). But the criteria no longer exist. Most of those who will be recruited are recommended by the Serbian agency network – from the Serbian Church to pro-Russian and pro-Serb parties – say our interlocutors.
According to Pobjeda, Joksimovic was hired by Kurti and their friendship has lasted for years. They became close when Kurti worked at the Commercial Court and Joksimović was the driver of the President of the Commercial Court.
In the last few months, since Boris Bato Milić was appointed to head the agency (October 2022), a significant number of people have been hired, Pobjeda’s sources point out, stating that that he has already distributed the contracts to most of them, but they need systematisation precisely to remain in a permanent employment.
They “covered” all posts, not only chiefs but also chief inspectors in the most important areas of work. And this cannot be easily corrected later, if a professional who will work in the interest of the state of Montenegro is hired in ANB at all – warn Pobjeda’s interlocutors.
With the systematisation act, Abazović, Kurti and Milić, they say, intend to “take harsh revenge”.
They will reduce their titles to the maximum, which means a lower salary, so the average retirement … They believe that this pressure will succeed in “converting” at least some of them to their side – our sources point out. .
They are categorical that Abazovic, through Kurti and Milić, is delivering the final blow to the National Security Agency from which there is no recovery.
If this goes through, when and if people who are patriots come in, the service should be disbanded. There is no other way to fix this. Send everyone home and redesign the service. The way these people are going to systemise this is going to be a cancer on the country. Everything that has been done so far is laughable compared to what they would have done if this had gone through, Pobjeda’s ANB sources are categorical.
DESTRUCTION OF THE SERVICE
They include operatives with many years of experience and say they cannot remember such an attack on the service.
Milić has accepted to do the dirtiest jobs for Abazovic and Kurti, i.e. for those for whom they work. He would not have done such a thing even if a foreigner had been put in charge of the service with the intention of destroying it, our interlocutors are convinced.
The National Security Agency, which Pobjeda has written about in a series of articles, was placed under Russian control with the appointment of Dejan Vukšić in December 2020, a few months after pro-Russian and pro-Serb forces, led by the Serbian Church, seized power in the country.
A year later, when Abazovic decided to withdraw his support from the government in which he was vice-president and coordinator of the security services, and in which he was supported by the then opposition led by the Democratic Socialist Party, one of the demands of the Western partners was to put a person they trusted at the head of the Agency, because of the threat to classified information.
Abazovic, at the first meeting of his government, on 5 May 2022, appointed Savo Kentera as acting director of the ANB. That he did not want to lose control of the secret service completely became clear two months later when he nominated his close friend Artan Kurti to be the government-appointed Inspector General of the ANB.
And Pobjeda wrote in January 2022 that it was Kurti who linked Abazovic to Boris Milić and others who offered them their favours when it became certain that Vukšić would be replaced.
Even though Kurti did not meet even the minimum criteria for the position in the ANB, even though the security assessments were negative, mainly because of his criminal past, and even though part of the public reacted violently, Abazovic stuck with his candidate and appointed him Inspector General in late July.
Kentera refused to allow Kurti access to classified information, citing the formal reason – the mandatory vetting that all Agency employees must undergo. This left Abazovic without information on two major international investigations involving the ANB – the exposure of a Russian spy network in Montenegro and state-sponsored tobacco smuggling. And both branches of the investigations led to Abazovic and his party – the Ura…
Just a few days after the first arrests in these two cases, Abazovic dismissed Kentera, and he did so in an emergency telephone meeting of the government – on 7 October last year.
Tomorrow, he appointed Boris Milic as acting head, and the agency is essentially run by Abazovic’s friend Artan Kurti.
The two-year search for the “postman”
An experienced ANB operative, who writes for M portal under the pseudonym Professional, reported a few days ago that outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic had ordered an urgent investigation to find out who the agent or several of them were who were cooperating with the media.
Artan Kurti and Boris Milić, on his orders, were targeting 12 people whom they accused of passing information from ANB archives to the media, he wrote.
The passionate search for “moles” in ANB did not start with Abazovic: as early as January 2021, shortly after he was appointed Acting Director, Dejan Vukšić made controlling the outflow of information a priority.
Vukšić, the head of the pro-Russian and pro-Serb list led by DF – “For the Future of Kotor”, came to the ANB top job at the urging of the Serbian Church. He successfully completed his first task – removing or sidelining all Montenegrin operatives and installing a Russian-Serbian agent network.
When “Professional”, later Pobjeda, revealed in a series of articles the malicious intentions of destroying the Montenegrin security sector, Vukšić launched a large-scale campaign to find the “moles” who had passed the information to the media, especially Pobjeda.
The search proved futile, although Vukšić selected nine ANB operatives and reported them. They were not prosecuted either during his mandate or after Vukšić’s dismissal.
Abazovic’s team, led by Artan Kurti – who, alongside the director Boris Milic, heads the ANB – has now resumed the search, and their list of “postmen” is wider – they suspect 12 operatives. Their plan is to remove them from the service through a new systematisation, which is foreseen “under urgent procedure”./Pobjeda/
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