BIA planned chaos in Podgorica: Panther Command and Snake contact

(Patria) - Montenegrin police arrested Serbian citizen Željko Stanković on Wednesday, employed as a civilian at the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Ostrog Monastery, for further investigation regarding seized documents marked "strictly confidential" and announcing the organization of sabotage actions in Montenegro, writes Montenegrin Pobjeda.

According to Pobjeda's information, Montenegrin police conducted an extensive operation earlier this week to locate certain individuals of security interest who are suspected of participating in drug smuggling operations.

Early Wednesday morning, police searched a "safe house" in Nikšić in hopes of finding an individual of security interest from Podgorica for whom an internal warrant had been issued. According to operational data, this person was supposed to be hiding with his girlfriend, a native of Nikšić, in a rented apartment.

Instead of the sought-after member of the criminal clan, police forces found Željko Stanković, a Serbian citizen with registered residency in Montenegro, in the apartment. He told investigators that he had rented the apartment in Nikšić a few months ago and that he works on the grounds of the Ostrog Monastery.

However, the police used a court order and, during the search, found something much more intriguing besides a few joints of marijuana – three "strictly confidential dispatches," marked as "military secret."

At the bottom of the seized dispatches are the signatures of individuals who actually exist: Bratislav Gašić, director of the Security Information Agency of Serbia, as well as Zoran Stojanov from the Serbian Ministry of Defense.

All three are titled – Panther Command, and the content is frightening. The recipient of the first dispatch is informed that he (an unidentified person, without a name in the dispatch) and his men from the "Panther" Command "are not part of the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia," that the previously appointed commander of forces in Montenegro, codenamed "Jastreb" (Hawk), "withdrew from the operation," and that "before armed conflicts in Montenegro," two packages should be picked up.

The shipments that the "panthers" in Montenegro are supposed to pick up are marked with the codes cc-24/1 and cc-24/2. The content of the packages is not stated, but the tasks of the secret unit are precisely defined: "occupying strategic positions, reconnaissance, sabotage, and guarding strategic positions and facilities during the conflict"...

At the end of the strictly confidential record, it is stated that "further communication will continue through contact 'Zmija' (Snake)".

The cited dispatch was registered on November 15, 2019. By its writing style, text structure, and stated commands, the confidential document resembles an instruction for "black operations," which a state secretly carries out on the territory of another country through agents or mercenaries.

The timing of the dispatches is also indicative: a few weeks before the adoption of the Law on Freedom of Religion, when pro-Serbian political parties in Montenegro, as well as the leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church, loudly announced unrest, protests, and "holy sites defended with blood" if the law was adopted by the Parliament of Montenegro.

The moment for some action by "patriotic fanatics" was ideal: unrest was expected in Montenegro from January.

To give everything an appearance of authenticity, at the bottom of the seized dispatches are the signatures of individuals who actually exist in Serbia's intelligence nomenclature: Bratislav Gašić, director of the Security Information Agency of Serbia, and Zoran Stojanov, a lawyer employed in the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia. 

These are people who are indeed in these positions. 

Gašić, a former controversial minister of defense of Serbia, has been the director of the BIA since 2017, by order of Aleksandar Vučić, and Zoran Stojanov is a military official in the Ministry of Defense of Zoran Vulin, authorized to process requests for access to information within the jurisdiction of the Public Relations Directorate.

At the end of the strictly confidential record, it is stated that "further communication will continue through contact 'Zmija' (Snake)".

It is difficult to believe that dispatches of such frightening content and with the original signatures of two Serbian security officials could actually be found with a twenty-three-year-old Serbian citizen from Novi Sad.

According to our newspaper's information, Stanković is not considered a person of security interest, and some minor offenses have been recorded against him in Serbia.

He moved to Montenegro in 2017 and is employed at the Ostrog Monastery. During the interrogation, our source says, he stated that he performs "not very difficult physical labor, sometimes ensuring the passage of pilgrim convoys." He regularly receives a monthly compensation of 400 euros, and sometimes, for the needs of monk Matej Vuksanović, who hired him to work at Ostrog, he also performed courier services. 

Although he appeared frightened after being detained – and Stanković certainly doesn't look like a special forces operative capable of setting Montenegro ablaze with a team of colleagues – Pobjeda's source from the investigation claims that he has not yet revealed to the police where the allegedly confidential military dispatches came from. Or for what purpose they might have been useful.

The details of the investigation are not yet known, except for the information that Stanković was detained. The Montenegrin police did not respond to Pobjeda's inquiries.