Milivoje Brkovic Arrested for Supporting Mladic

Milivoje Brkovic, a United Montenegro councilor in the Podgorica City Assembly known by the nickname Brdza, was arrested on September 8 on orders from the Basic State Prosecution in Podgorica, a day after Ratko Mladic was buried in Belgrade. Prosecutors suspect that Brkovic’s Facebook post supporting the convicted general harassed an individual or group of people, which they say violated the Law on Protection of Equality and Prohibition of Discrimination. The case is the first arrest of an elected Montenegrin official over a reaction to the general’s funeral, and it lands at a moment when attitudes toward the topic are already dividing the neighboring country, including part of the public following events from Belgrade.

Brkovic is charged with violating Article 13 of the Law on Protection of Equality and Prohibition of Discrimination. The article defines harassment as unwanted conduct toward a person or group of people that aims at, or results in, violating their dignity, causing fear, humiliation or offense, or creating a hostile or degrading environment. The charge rests on a video of a performance the councilor posted to his Facebook profile. The footage shows a group of men unfurling a banner reading “General, Christ Is Risen” on a suspension bridge in Podgorica, then lighting torches in the colors of the Serbian tricolor. Brkovic captioned the post “Grandpa Ratko, we love you.”

The performance and the post followed shortly after Ratko Mladic’s funeral at Belgrade’s Topcider Cemetery on September 7. Brkovic was brought before a misdemeanor judge in Podgorica the same day he was arrested, where he is expected to enter a plea on the charge against him. Prosecutors have not yet said whether a separate criminal case will be opened against him beyond the misdemeanor proceeding.

Reaction from United Montenegro

United Montenegro leader Goran Danilovic responded to the arrest with a Facebook post linking his party colleague’s case to an earlier attack on his own safety that he says institutions failed to pursue with the same urgency.

“They still can’t arrest the man who attacked Brkovic, but they can arrest Brkovic. They don’t arrest those who threaten Vesna Bratic and me, but they arrest banners. Nothing could be more shameful,” Danilovic wrote.

In the same post, Danilovic also named lawmaker Vesna Bratic, saying both she and he had previously received threats that, in his words, authorities did not pursue with the same determination they showed toward the banner and the councilor’s post.

Same day, another case

On the day Brkovic was arrested, the Higher State Prosecution in Podgorica also opened a separate case against Metropolitan Metodije of Montenegro and the Littoral, likewise over reactions to Ratko Mladic’s funeral. The two parallel proceedings, a misdemeanor case against the councilor and a case under the Higher Prosecution’s jurisdiction against the head of the Metropolitanate, show that Montenegrin institutions are treating the fallout from the general’s funeral in Belgrade as a matter for a legal response, not just political debate.

For Serbia, the case matters precisely because of that contrast: it shows how quickly the ripples of an event in Belgrade can turn into a legal case in a neighboring country, while in Belgrade itself, where the funeral was held, no such consequences followed. Part of the Montenegrin public and the Podgorica City Assembly are already reading the arrest as a continuation of the dispute over whether Montenegro should regulate public displays of support for people convicted of war crimes more strictly, a dispute that also surrounded the earlier case against the Metropolitanate.

It is not yet known when Brkovic will appear before the misdemeanor judge under the official schedule, or whether prosecutors will also file a criminal complaint against him.