Čedo Čolović apparently admits to being a spy.
Čedo Čolović, suspected of espionage against Serbia in favour of Croatia, has made a plea bargain with Serbia’s prosecutors, reports Večernji List on September 5, 2016.
The terms of the plea bargain have been received by the High Court, and the judge in charge of preliminary proceedings will make a decision whether to accept it. The prosecution has earlier suggested to the judge to order remand prison for Čolović due to the risk of flight and possible influence on witnesses. Čolović was facing prison sentence longer than 10 years, said the Prosecutor's Office in a statement.
The media in Belgrade speculated that Čolović could make a deal with the prosecution, allegedly for a three-year prison sentence, in exchange for a guilty plea for cooperation with Croatian intelligence services. According to Serbian media, Čolović was engaged in intelligence and espionage activities in order to avoid prosecution for alleged war crimes committed during the war in the 1990s, when he was a member of Serbian rebel forces.
Čolović was arrested on Friday on suspicion of spying against Serbia in favour of Croatia, and the High Court in Belgrade detained him for 30 days. Serbia’s Criminal Code provides for a penalty of 3 to 15 years in prison for people who make military, economic or official secrets available to other countries. According to Serbian law, plea agreements are possible for offenses with the maximum prison sentence of 12 years.
Commenting on this affair, former director of the Serbian Military Security Agency Momir Stojanović said that it was necessary to determine all the information that the former member of Serbian rebel forces in Croatia transferred to Croatian authorities and who were his accomplices, because “the whole network of suspects needs to be discovered”.
Croatian Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković said in an interview that he talked about the issue with director of Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency Daniel Markić who told him that the arrested person was not a Croatian spy. “All we know is that he was a major in the Yugoslav National Army and that during the Homeland War he fought on the Serbian side. We expect to receive more information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, said Orešković and added that he believed that the whole affair was a provocation by Serbia.
