DŽUVO, ZARIĆ AND NEŠIĆ IN ACTION - OSA LIFTS TRAVEL BANS Russian lobbyist Goran Petronijević can enter BiH, Miloš Ković also allowed entry

(Patria) - Miloš Ković and Goran Petronijević are no longer a threat to the national security of BiH. The Intelligence-Security Agency (OSA BiH) has assessed that these two Russian propagandists are not dangerous, and that they can enter Bosnia and Herzegovina unhindered in the future, Istraga.ba has learned.

The removal from the so-called BiH blacklist followed a recent meeting between the state Minister of Security Nenad Nešić and the leadership of OSA, headed by Almir Džuvo and Risto Zarić.

"In the coming period, we will have a meeting with representatives of OSA and the Service for Affairs with Foreigners regarding the entry ban for certain individuals into BiH. I expect to see at that meeting why certain individuals are banned from entering BiH," said Minister of Security Nešić on May 14.

A few days later, OSA assessed that Miloš Ković, a Belgrade professor known for his pro-Russian views, and lawyer Goran Petronijević no longer pose a threat to the national security of BiH.

That Ković and Petronijević are now welcome in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been confirmed to Istraga from several sources within BiH security agencies.

Goran Petronijević

Serbian lawyer Goran Petronijević is the President of the Management Board of the "Russian Humanitarian Mission" Fund, with which the authorities of Republika Srpska signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. In early March 2022, OSA banned him from entering BiH, identifying him as a person who poses a threat to security, public order, public order and peace, and public health in BiH or BiH's international relations.

Goran Petronijević was a judge until 2001, and his transition to law occurred after the regime change in Serbia in 2000.

He was an observer of the referendum in Ukraine's Crimea. In The Hague, he represented Veselin Šljivančanin, who was acquitted of charges. In Serbia, he represented various clients, from show business artists to individuals accused of the most serious crimes.

In his judicial career, Petronijević was the presiding judge in May 2000, when 141 Albanians were convicted for attacks on police and the army in Đakovica, Kosovo, but the verdict was overturned and all were released a year later.

In September of the same year, then-judge Petronijević was a member of the judicial panel in the trial against Western leaders who were convicted for the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Among those convicted were the presidents of the USA and France, Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac, as well as German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. However, that verdict was also overturned the following year, Nova.rs writes.

He was a member of Radovan Karadžić's legal team, an organizer of anti-NATO protests in Niš, but most importantly - Petronijević was the defense attorney for Bratislav Dikić, former commander of the Serbian Gendarmerie, accused of attempting a coup in Montenegro with the help of Russian intelligence to prevent the country's entry into NATO.

Bratislav Dikić, according to Podgorica media, revoked his power of attorney to lawyer Petronijević because he wanted to plead guilty, but his defense attorney forbade him.

Shortly thereafter, lawyer Petronijević issued a statement through the Russian agency Sputnik.

"They threatened us, wiretapped defense attorneys, prevented the defense, and to that, we must add the rigid stance of the Court of Appeals towards everything the defense proposed. In a word, the proceedings can be measured with Kafkaesque, in the true sense of the word. This is a completely monstrous procedure under inhumane conditions regarding the defense, regarding the accused, regarding everyone, with His Highness, the 'patriarch of truth', the famous Sinđelić," Goran Petronijević said at the end of January 2018.

Lawyer Petronijević is known as a pro-Russian activist. In March 2016, together with Bratislav Dikić, he organized anti-NATO protests in Niš. In one of the numerous photos from that rally, in the company of Goran Petronijević and Bratislav Dikić, is the leader of Srbska Čast - Bojan Stojković. With them was Nemanja Ristić, a convicted murderer from Serbia and a member of the Belgrade underworld.

Petronijević is a frequent guest on RTRS. His last appearance was two days ago, on the occasion of Milorad Dodik's visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"A very significant meeting between the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, especially at a time when many think that the whole world is against Russia, which is not true," Petronijević told RTRS.

Miloš Ković

The professor from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade was banned from entering BiH in early 2022. According to the portal Radio Sarajevo, and Slobodna Evropa, Ković defended the crimes of Serbian forces in BiH as a witness at the Hague trial of the former commander of the VRS, Ratko Mladić, who was later convicted of war crimes.

In 2015, as a defense expert for historical context, he described the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a civil war, claiming that the VRS Serbian forces were only defending themselves. While denying accusations of the goal of creating Greater Serbia through ethnic cleansing of occupied territories - Ković justified the crimes of Serbian forces with the crimes of other warring parties. The judges warned him several times for this.

As a historian from Serbia and a defense expert for General Mladić, Ković rejected accusations that the actions of Serbian forces were aimed at creating Greater Serbia. He also refused to confirm that Vojislav Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party was nationalist, even when confronted with its publication titled - "Greater Serbia".

"These are labels now. Someone can be a nationalist, someone an imperialist... it all depends now... I wouldn't get into labeling. Greater Serbia is a 19th-century ideal and there was nothing controversial about it," the defense witness vaguely responded, while defending the nationalist concept, for which numerous war crimes were allegedly committed.

In 2017, Ković was a signatory of the so-called "Appeal for the Defense of Kosovo and Metohija," which, according to Serbian media at the time, was also supported by some leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC). The document was drafted and supported by members of the Political Council of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), a party from whose leadership Vojislav Koštunica, former President of the FR Yugoslavia and Prime Minister of Serbia, withdrew in 2014. Ković was a member of that DSS Political Council.

In 2020, Ković was also an active participant in the protests organized by the SPC in Montenegro against the adoption of the Law on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Legal Status of Religious Communities.

"You are today the guardians of our Kosovo covenant," Ković told the gathered crowd, which included several hundred children, at a Svetosavski gathering in Budva on January 28, 2020. At that time, messages were also sent from the stage that "Kosovo's holy sites are also being defended" in Montenegro.