Montenegro’s Kalic questioned in plot, released

An alleged drug lord in northern Montenegro was questioned over the weekend for renting an apartment to 10 men who were later arrested on suspicion of plotting to kill a person police did not name in the capital Podgorica, reported the local press.

Press reported that Safet Kalić, 40, was served a warrant from Montenegro's special prosecutor for organized crime on Saturday and was taken to Podgorica in handcuffs. Kalić was released after giving his statement, according to the Serbian daily Blic. Police would reveal nothing about Kalić's questioning, only that he was under suspicion of "property violations" and that they had not pressed charges.

The 10 arrested Saturday night were charged with criminal association to commit first-degree murder and possession of arms and explosives. They will remain in custody for 30 days. Police did not name the target of the suspects' assassination plot.

Kalić was questioned because he had rented a 200-square-meter Podgorica apartment to the group. "He claimed that he had no relation to them and that he didn't know them," a source told the Montenegrin daily Vijesti, adding that the organized crime directorate had no proof linking Kalić to the group or to the murder plot.

In a letter to Vijesti after he was released, Kalić complained of the paper's report of his arrest, saying he was not arrested or handcuffed, nor was he questioned as a suspect in any crime.

Local press in the region refers to Kalić as a controversial businessman whose family is the wealthiest in what is Montenegro's poorest region. The Kalić family owns the gas station chain M-Petrol. Kalić's Hotel Rožaje – a 31-room, four-star hotel in Rožaje, an economically depressed northeastern Montenegrin town of 9,000 – opened in spring 2007. Kalić's company Turjak owns this and one other hotel, and runs two Rožaje restaurants and a resort on southern Montenegro's Velika Plaža. Safet Kalić's name also heads the registry of a private security company called Daut and Daut.

Kalić's name became public 2003, when Serbian police investigating the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić alleged that he was one of the biggest narco-bosses in the Balkans, and that he had for years supplied hundreds of kilograms of heroin to the Zemun Clan, whose members were ruled to be involved in  the ĐinĐic murder.