Two decades ago, Montenegro systematically covered up a case of human trafficking and forced prostitution involving Moldovan citizen Svetlana Čabotarenko (S.Č.). That cover-up enabled two of the four individuals suspected of her exploitation — Zoran Piperović and Ekrem Jasavić — to criminally prosecute her a decade later, in her absence, for giving false testimony. In those fabricated proceedings, S.Č. was unjustly sentenced to one year in prison, and Montenegro issued an international arrest warrant against her. Last Sunday, it was announced that the warrant had been lifted, as the criminal prosecution had become statute-barred in 2018. The epilogue of the case is not justice for the victim, nor redemption for the Montenegrin judiciary, but merely a reminder that Montenegro was incapable of prosecuting and punishing what became a widely known human trafficking case.

None of those who imprisoned, resold, beat, raped, abused, and forced S.Č. into prostitution were held accountable — not the state prosecutors who were obligated to prosecute, not the judges who subsequently convicted her with bias, not the Judicial Council or the Supreme Court, which refused to respond to that bias. Montenegro remains indebted to her, and her case stands as a reflection of the politically controlled institutions of that era.

Nevertheless, there are honorable exceptions — most notably Judge Ana Vuković, who made efforts during the investigative proceedings to protect the victim in accordance with international standards, and Judge Nada Rabrenović, who twice issued acquittals in the criminal proceedings against S.Č.

S.Č. is a Moldovan citizen who, in Podgorica in October 2002, managed to escape from individuals who had been exploiting her and had confiscated her personal documents, and to report to the police the human trafficking case of which she was a victim. During the investigative phase, she described in detail the locations, circumstances, and individuals involved in the human trafficking chain, and made allegations regarding the involvement of high-ranking state officials.

Despite the arrests that followed in November 2002 and a six-month investigation — in which investigating judge Ana Vuković concluded there were grounds for charges — the state prosecution charged no one. In Vuković’s assessment, the victim had given credible testimony that enabled the identification of the perpetrators and locations of exploitation. However, the case revealed the state prosecution’s complete unwillingness to confront her allegations, while she was continuously subjected to death threats against both herself and her children. Once she had finished giving her testimony, and given her severe psychophysical condition resulting from the abuse, she was assisted in leaving Montenegro and traveling to a third country with the help of the UN and IOM. That said, this case did — on the proposal of Vesna Medenica, then the newly appointed Supreme State Prosecutor — lead to the dismissal of the state prosecutor responsible for the case, Zoran Radonjić, for incompetence, as well as the Deputy Supreme State Prosecutor, Zoran Piperović, who was suspected of procuring prostitution, on grounds of unworthiness.

A decade later, two of those suspected of criminal offenses related to the exploitation of S.Č. — Zoran Piperović and Ekrem Jasavić — filed a criminal complaint against her for giving false testimony. After the complaint was dismissed by a state prosecutor at the Basic State Prosecution, the two proceeded as private prosecutors in criminal proceedings against S.Č., conducted in her absence.

In the first trial of S.Č., presided over by Judge Nada Rabrenović of the Basic Court in Podgorica, the defendant was acquitted twice, as the judge found no established intent to commit the criminal offense. The case was then assigned to Judge Goran Đuković.

The second trial, held in S.Č.‘s absence, failed to meet even the most basic standards of fairness. Judge Đuković acted with open bias and did not ensure equal treatment of the defendant in the proceedings; he presented no evidence that could have worked in her favor, did not respond to the court-appointed defense counsel’s completely passive conduct, uncritically accepted material evidence notorious in cases of human trafficking concealment, and uncritically accepted all statements made by the prosecutors — including those that were insulting and disparaging toward fellow Judge Ana Vuković, who had led the investigative proceedings, toward S.Č.‘s attorney who represented her during the 2002–2003 investigation, and toward the director of the Women’s Safe House, Ljiljana Raičević, in whose shelter S.Č. had stayed — none of whom he even called to testify.

Judge Đuković also distinguished himself with the remarkable observation that it was “illogical” for any Montenegrin statesman to live a dissolute lifestyle, or for the Deputy Supreme State Prosecutor to commit criminal offenses such as procuring prostitution. His own words from the verdict speak volumes: “It is logically inconceivable that (Piperović), who held the public office of Deputy Supreme State Prosecutor, could have committed such a serious criminal offense against the then-victim, especially since that office required not only professional qualifications but also a high standing in both professional and personal life…” (Verdict K. No. 199/14, p. 40). Today, when several state prosecutors have already been convicted or stand trial, it seems incredible that in 2014 in Montenegro it was considered a normalized judicial conclusion that all state prosecutors are inherently moral and that it is logically impossible for them to commit serious crimes.

But that is not where it ends. The verdict convicting S.Č. also contained evidence of bias toward “Montenegrin statesmen” — specifically the then-Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, whom S.Č. had mentioned in her testimony in the context of wild parties at a villa in Sveti Stefan that she had attended. The verdict thus also contains the following judicial conclusion: “(The defendant’s testimony) proves… above all illogical, and particularly so the claim that any Montenegrin statesman lives the kind of lifestyle that the then-victim groundlessly seeks to portray…” (Verdict K. No. 199/14, p. 41). Such conclusions are plainly not legal reasoning — they are evidence of judicial subservience to state officials, at the victim’s expense. Đuković did, however, only hand down a suspended sentence, while three judges of the Higher Court in Podgorica — Miljana Pavlićević, Hasnija Simonović and Evica Durutović, all now retired — upgraded that sentence to one year in prison. They endorsed their colleague Đuković’s conduct in all other respects as well, including their failure to react to the fact that S.Č.‘s court-appointed defense counsel, Boško Laličić, had done absolutely nothing on her behalf: he proposed no evidence, challenged no evidence presented by the prosecution, and in his closing statement merely “left it to the court to render a lawful decision.” He did not even file an appeal against the first-instance verdict. The judges themselves concluded that he had proposed the dismissal of the prosecutors’ appeal — meaning the defense counsel had not even requested that much, though he had in all likelihood collected his fees for doing nothing throughout those proceedings.

In December 2014, the Women’s Safe House (SŽK), the Human Rights Action (HRA) and the Women’s Rights Centre (WRC) filed complaints with the Judicial Council, the Commission for the Judges’ Code of Ethics, the presidents of the Basic and Higher Courts in Podgorica, and the Bar Association regarding the conduct of the judges and the attorney in this case. All declared themselves without jurisdiction.

The Judicial Council, then chaired by Prof. Dr. Mladen Vukčević, declared itself without jurisdiction — finding that the body should not consider complaints about the work of judges, despite this being in direct contradiction to the Constitution and laws of Montenegro, which explicitly require the Council to examine such complaints, as it continues to do to this day. The President of the Commission for the Judges’ Code of Ethics, Dobrica Šljivančanin — whose commission had only three members, one of whom was none other than Hasnija Simonović, one of the very judges against whom the complaint was filed — ignored the complaint. The President of the Basic Court, Zoran Radović, responded neither to the complaint nor to the follow-up requests. The Disciplinary Prosecutor of the Bar Association, Živko Savović, and the President of the Bar Association, Zdravko Begović, were equally dismissive of the complaint against attorney Laličić. Subsequently, the Deputy Disciplinary Prosecutor of the Bar Association, Nenad Medojević, declared the body without jurisdiction, stating that they were not competent “to evaluate the expediency of taking or not taking actions in the numerous cases in which attorneys appear before courts on a daily basis.”

What happened to S.Č. is not merely an individual injustice. The impunity for what was done to her has surely deterred many others from reporting anything similar to the Montenegrin authorities. And her punishment, as a victim, served as an additional warning to all. This ran contrary to the non-punishment principle for victims of human trafficking — a principle to which Montenegro has been repeatedly called to adhere by GRETA, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. That principle holds that victims, even when they commit criminal offenses — which was not the case here — must not be prosecuted if those offenses were a direct consequence of the exploitation they had suffered. Montenegro did not apply that principle in S.Č.’s case — neither the court, nor the other institutions that had a duty to sanction such conduct. Evelin Probst, coordinator of the Austrian centre for the protection of human trafficking victims LEFÖ-IBF — the organization where S.Č. stayed after leaving Montenegro — stated that the organization was shocked by the conviction, emphasizing that it had been evident S.Č. was a victim of severe trauma and that she deserved nothing but respect for her courage in reporting the crimes to the police. It is also known that her testimony contributed to the 2003 arrest by Serbian police of Milivoje Zarubica, the organizer of a human trafficking and sexual exploitation network.

The statute of limitations on prosecution is no form of satisfaction. Satisfaction would be the rule of law — perpetrators convicted, the victim officially recognized as such, and the institutions that failed to protect her at least confronted with that failure. None of that has happened. The lifting of the arrest warrant does nothing to change that assessment. When the most prominent and most courageous victim of human trafficking in Montenegro, the region, and beyond was left unprotected and prosecuted, it is no wonder she remains the only one who has been remembered.

Maja Raičević, Women’s Rights Centre (WRC)

Tea Gorjanc Prelević, Human Rights Action (HRA)

Budislavka Mira Saveljić, Women’s Safe House (SŽK)