Kavac clan suspect extradited to Montenegro over killings
Serbia handed Marko Kilibarda, 39, to Montenegrin authorities at the Dobrakovo border crossing. The extradition took about a year, and an indictment for aggravated murder awaits him in Podgorica.
- On July 27, 2026, Serbia handed Marko Kilibarda, 39, to Montenegrin authorities at the Dobrakovo border crossing.
- The extradition process took about a year, starting with his arrest in Belgrade in July 2025 on an Interpol red notice.
- He faces charges of aggravated murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and forming a criminal organisation, and is suspected of involvement in three killings.
- Veljko Belivuk, Marko Miljkovic and Radoje Zvicer are named on the same Montenegrin indictment.
Serbia handed Marko Kilibarda, 39, to Montenegrin authorities on Monday evening at the Dobrakovo border crossing. The Montenegrin national is treated in investigations there as a member of the Kavac clan. The handover took place under heightened security, and the suspect was driven towards Podgorica in a police van.
Kilibarda was arrested in Belgrade in July 2025 on an Interpol red notice issued at the request of the Montenegrin judiciary. Roughly a year passed between the arrest and the handover, the time it took Serbian courts to complete the extradition procedure.
Montenegrin prosecutors suspect him of aggravated murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and forming a criminal organisation. Proceedings against him are yet to open before the court in Podgorica, and no guilt has been established.
What is he accused of?
The first strand of suspicion concerns June 28, 2018 and the Makedonsko naselje neighbourhood in Bar, where V. D. was killed. Prosecutors allege Kilibarda took part in that killing.
A second set of allegations relates to October 14, 2020 and the aggravated murders of D. H. and A. S. In both cases the Montenegrin prosecution treats the suspect as a participant, with the charge of forming a criminal organisation binding the separate acts into a single case file.
According to the Montenegrin proceedings, the indictment rests to a significant degree on decrypted communication taken from encrypted devices. That type of evidence now underpins most organised crime cases across the region, and it also draws the heaviest fire from defence teams, which routinely challenge how the messages were obtained and how the chain of custody was kept.
The suspect is separately charged with attempted murder as a distinct incident within the same indictment. Prosecutors have not published the full detail of the individual acts, so at this stage the wording of the investigation orders is what stands.
Why the handover matters for the Montenegrin cases
In Montenegro, Kilibarda appears on an indictment alongside Veljko Belivuk, Marko Miljkovic and Radoje Zvicer. No final conviction has been entered against any of them in that case.
His availability to the Podgorica court means in practice that the main hearing can proceed without severing the case because one defendant is out of reach. In large organised crime trials, severance is a frequent cause of adjournments, repeated presentation of evidence and duplicated expert reports, and it can stretch a case out by years.
The extradition is also a measure of how well judicial cooperation between the two countries works. The case went through the regular route, with courts reviewing whether the conditions for extradition were met, rather than a quick police handover. That is why it took about a year, a normal timeline when a defendant uses every available legal remedy.
For Montenegrin prosecutors the case is one pillar of a broader indictment against the Kavac group, covering several killings committed between 2018 and 2020. For the Serbian side, the handover closes a chapter that began with an arrest in Belgrade a year ago.
The next step is a ruling by the Podgorica court on detention and on how the case proceeds. Until then, the suspect is presumed innocent.
How much does regional judicial cooperation genuinely speed up organised crime cases, and how far are those cases still hostage to slow extradition formalities?
