Montenegro deports man convicted of murder to Serbia

Montenegro’s police directorate handed S. V. over to Serbian police at a border crossing. Serbian records list him as the perpetrator of a murder committed on Serbian territory, for which he received a prison sentence. The handover followed his arrest in Podgorica, where officers located and detained him.

According to the Montenegrin police statement, he entered the country illegally, away from an official border crossing. That means his entry was never logged in any border database, so the authorities had no record that he was in Montenegro. An identity check established that he had been convicted of murder in Serbia and had not served the sentence in full. He was on approved release privileges when he crossed the border.

Montenegrin police also say he is suspected of having stayed in Podgorica in order to prepare and carry out a serious criminal offence. On the available information, that suspicion has not been turned into an indictment before Montenegrin courts. Until a final ruling by a competent court, no one may be treated as guilty of an offence they are charged with, so at this stage the case rests on police intelligence alone.

Why deportation rather than extradition?

The distinction is not merely formal. Extradition is a court procedure. It is triggered by a request from another state, decided by a judge, and the person concerned has the right to a defence lawyer and to appeal. It takes weeks, sometimes months. Deporting a foreign national is an administrative measure carried out by the police under legislation on foreigners, where entry or residence is unlawful, and it requires no criminal court ruling.

In practice the two measures are often blurred in reporting, and any return of a person from one country to another gets described as extradition. Where someone has already been convicted with finality in the country they are returned to, and is staying in the other country without legal grounds, the administrative route is quicker and needs no court ruling on surrender. In such cases the two police forces deal with each other directly, through their border and international operational cooperation services.

Here the legal basis was unlawful entry and residence. He was given 18 days in custody for a violation of the Law on Foreigners, then escorted to the border and handed over to Serbian police. That is why it is more accurate to say Montenegro deported and handed him over rather than extradited him. The outcome is the same; the procedure is not.

What awaits him in Serbia

A person with a final conviction who has not served the sentence in full is returned to serve the remainder. Release privileges, such as supervised leave from a correctional facility, are granted to inmates who meet the conditions during their sentence. Breaching them normally means those privileges are withdrawn and the inmate returns to a stricter regime.

The case also raises the question of how well the green border between the two countries is monitored. Crossing away from official checkpoints is not unusual, but this involved someone already inside the criminal sanctions system. Without the police check in Podgorica, his presence there would have gone undetected.

How effective do you think the checks are at border crossings between Serbia and Montenegro?