Italian prosecutors to charge former Montenegrin officials with cigarette smuggling

PODGORICA, Montenegro — Prosecutors in the Italian town of Bari reportedly have completed a preliminary probe into cigarette smuggling and will seek court proceedings against former Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, former Finance Minister Miroslav Ivanisevic and Montenegro’s former trade attaché to Italy, Dusanka Pesic-Jeknic. They and nine or ten others are suspected of participating in a criminal enterprise to smuggle cigarettes and launder money from 1994 to 2002, according to press reports.

On Saturday (June 23rd), the spokesman for Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists, Rajko Kovacevic, dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.