Four years later, police and prosecutors have still not reviewed surveillance footage or questioned Serbian Orthodox Church priests?!

It took four and a half years for the Montenegrin public to hear, for the first time, that Vuk Borilović, the Cetinje mass killer, had been at Cetinje Monastery before embarking on his deadly rampage.

- The killer from Medovina came out of this Monastery, where Saint Peter of Cetinje rests. Half an hour later, he killed my daughter, he killed my two grandchildren, he killed all the decent people of Cetinje. But he was paid - Vesna Pejović said at the „Cetinje Remembers“ gathering marking the fifth anniversary of the Belveder events.

Yes, the information about Borilović’s ties to priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church did not come from the police or the prosecution, but from a courageous woman - Vesna Pejović, the mother of Nataša Martinović and grandmother of two boys, Mašan and Marko Martinović, who were brutally killed in the mass shooting in Cetinje’s Medovina neighbourhood on August 12, 2022. That day, ten people were killed in Cetinje within just three hours.

Two details illustrate how the police responded during the massacre. The Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Counter-Terrorist Unit, commanded by Goran Jokić, arrived in Cetinje - after the media crews had already arrived?!

The extent to which the police were prepared to respond and protect citizens is also illustrated by the fact that five police officers who were on duty outside Cetinje Monastery did not respond, even though Medovina was only around one hundred metres from their position.

„THOROUGH“ INVESTIGATION

One important detail points to the catastrophic quality of the police and prosecutorial investigation following the Medovina massacre: the Montenegrin investigative team did not question the Serbian Orthodox Church clergy or other individuals at Cetinje Monastery at all.

This conclusion is supported by a letter from the head of the Cetinje Security Department, Miljan Ćirović, obtained by the Television E newsroom through MANS’s „Ask the Institutions“ application.

- With regard to the request of the Deputy Executive Director of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) MANS, Mr Dejan Milovac, we hereby inform you that, upon reviewing the documentation prepared in connection with the multiple homicide committed by Borilović Vuk, as well as the documentation prepared in connection with the multiple homicide committed by Martinović Aco, there is no record that interviews were conducted with the clergy or other individuals from Cetinje Monastery - the letter dated September 18 this year states.

Another document, also obtained by Television E through the MANS application, further demonstrates how seriously the investigation into the mass shooting in Cetinje was conducted.

It concerns precisely the investigation into the Medovina massacre. It turns out that the Montenegrin police did not obtain surveillance footage from around Cetinje Monastery, which is located only around one hundred metres from Medovina?!

It appears that the police and prosecution were not interested at all in reconstructing the movements of mass killer Vuk Borilović. This is the conclusion that emerges from an analysis of the decision issued by the MIA’s Department for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information.

WHO CARES ABOUT THE CAMERA FOOTAGE

- Having reviewed the case files and based on a document from the Police Directorate, Regional Security Centre „Centar“ - Cetinje Security Department No. 40-037/26-7734/2 dated September 21, 2026, we were informed that officers of the Cetinje Security Department did not obtain the video surveillance footage installed on the premises of Cetinje Monastery during the investigation into the multiple homicide committed on August 12, 2022 - the letter sent to Television E on September 30 states, among other things.

The document also explains why the police and prosecutors were not interested in the surveillance footage.

- This was because the information available did not indicate that Borilović Vuk had been in the vicinity of Cetinje Monastery or inside the premises in the period before the commission of the criminal offence - concludes Vladimir Gogić, the authorised official handling the proceedings.

If police and prosecutorial investigators were convinced that Borilović had not approached the Monastery, why was footage from surveillance cameras installed on the Government House building and in the surrounding area, along the road leading from Cetinje Monastery through the park towards the road to Medovina, not obtained? There are 17 surveillance cameras in that area alone.

There is no answer to that question. However, two letters from the Ministry of Internal Affairs illustrate in detail the lack of seriousness in the preliminary investigation and the subsequent prosecutorial investigation.

For the Montenegrin police and prosecution, it is particularly damning that they had to question Vesna Pejović, who provided new information on September 6.

BORILOVIĆ - A PAID TERRORIST?

This includes her claim that Vuk Borilović was, as she said in her speech at the gathering in Cetinje, a „paid terrorist“.

- I want to tell you that the killer Borilović was paid at this Monastery. The police found €4,200 in his house - Pejović said categorically.

This detail has not previously been mentioned by any state institution. According to ETV sources, Borilović is believed to have received the money only a few days before the Cetinje massacre. He had even complained to his few friends that he had been „flat broke“ for months and was struggling to support his family...

Attorney Nikola Belada, who represented and accompanied Vesna Pejović during her questioning before the Basic Prosecutor’s Office and subsequently the Higher Prosecutor’s Office, says he cannot disclose details of the interview.

Of the statement, which lasted approximately four hours, he was able to speak to ETV about the part in which he put questions to the prosecution.

- At one point I intervened and asked: why is Vesna Pejović being asked to provide evidence? Surely that is not her responsibility, but the responsibility of the competent authorities. And secondly, the fact that the terrorist, as Vesna Pejović calls him, came out of Cetinje Monastery immediately before the killings is very easy to establish – if there is actually a desire to establish it - Belada told ETV.

Belada did not receive an answer as to why surveillance footage from around the Monastery had not been obtained. According to him, there are as many as 13 cameras in the area. The prominent Cetinje lawyer also has no explanation as to why police officers who have been stationed outside Cetinje Monastery for years were not questioned.

- It is an undeniable fact that the police have been securing Cetinje Monastery for many years. That morning, police officers were in a vehicle next to the Monastery, and the killer could not have passed without them noticing him. Do we have statements or testimony from those police officers? We received no answer to that question; we encountered a wall of silence - Belada said, describing the exchange at the state prosecution.

The wall of silence encountered by both Belada and Pejović is easy to explain: according to information obtained by Television E, police officers from the Nikšić Security Department who were on duty outside Cetinje Monastery were never questioned.

It therefore remains unknown whether they saw or recognised Vuk Borilović that day. It also remains unknown why the police officers did not intervene that afternoon to help either their colleagues who were exchanging fire with Borilović or Cetinje resident Aleksandar Drecun, who was wounded in the arm while trying to reach the emergency department or hospital.

Many questions remain unanswered.

One thing is certain: no one within the Montenegrin police or prosecution has assumed responsibility for the failures in handling the situation during and after the mass shooting in Cetinje.