'Tunnel scam in Montenegro: Mafia miner's DNA came back'

Investigators should be able to confirm the identities of six suspects in the digging of a tunnel to the Superior Court vault ... Investigators are expected to receive today the first preliminary results of forensic evidence seized during an examination of the Superior Court vault, the tunnel leading to it and the apartment from which the tunnel was dug, including analyses of biological traces of the mob miners, Vesti unofficially learned.

Sources from the investigation say this will help them confirm the identities of the six suspects involved in digging the tunnel and preparing the crime scene. At the same time, police inspectors are reviewing hundreds of hours of CCTV footage to determine exactly whether and with whom they met in the days of preparation''intrusion into the room where evidence of serious crimes is kept. "Every day new orders are issued to seize recordings from video cameras all over Podgorica," an interlocutor said.

The same source said that D.P.'s decision to refuse polygraph testing during questioning on the charge of breaking into the court vault has sent the investigation in yet another direction. "Vesti" yesterday, citing several sources, published that this close employee of the president of the Supreme Court Boris Savich refused to answer questions about the court vault in front of a police polygraphist, which immediately aroused suspicion among investigators. As explained, although there is no legal possibility to force anyone to do so, and despite the fact that the results''lie detectors are not evidence at trial, it is an indicative factor for investigators.

Besides the suspicion that the thieves had assistants inside the courthouse, one branch of the investigation is focusing on checking Superior Court officials who were or may have been in the vault. According to the Vesti, Savich himself spoke to Prosecutor Mark Mugosha about this, talking about who had entered the vault over the past few months. He allegedly told prosecutor Mugosha that because of the sickness of the officer in charge of the archive of court documents and evidence, he had the key to the security of that room and would give it to colleagues who needed to go down to the vault for case files.''The evidence disappeared during the theft without a commission report of the evidence that was in that room before the theft. That someone was going through the evidence for the most significant trials was discovered on the morning of September 11. In the first hours, while the examination of the broken vault and the list of documents and evidence continued, it was discovered that the thieves had entered the vault through an underground passage of at least 30 meters that had been dug from the basement apartment in 12 Negusheva Street to the court vault.

Two days before Justice Minister Marko Kovacs announced on September 14 how many weapons were missing, Savic said in front of reporters that almost nothing was missing from the evidence. On the same day, September 12, Montenegro's police chief Nikola Terzic reacted to that statement, saying he wished Savic was right, but he feared the truth would be different.

After the inspection of the vault, tunnel and apartments - in Neguševa, 12 and in Zabijela, interrogations began at the Main State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica. The head of this prosecutor's office, prosecutor Duško Milanović, told Vesti at the time that everyone who has or may have information about the break-in of the vault of the Higher''of the court in Podgorica, are to testify. Among the first to be questioned was the owner of the basement in Neguševa Street, who explained to the prosecutor how the mafia miners had found her. She also told them that the intermediary was a Podgori real estate agency, whose agents brought a woman who introduced herself as a citizen of a neighboring country who planned to open a wedding dress salon. After the owner of the premises offered to clean up the basement, the false tenant said it would suit her better to remodel it as she chose. She paid two rents in advance that day and this, according to Vestia, amounted to the sum of 2,800 euros. In front of prosecutor Mugosha also appeared employees of this real estate agency who''also explained that they had no information about the new client and it was found that she had provided them with a false identity card. Mugosha also took statements from several employees of the High Court in Podgorica, and some of them agreed to polygraph testing. All those who agreed passed the polygraph.