New details emerge about Čedo Čolović.
Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) is expected to arrest about a dozen more people in the following days who are being investigated on suspicion of spying for Croatia, reports Jutarnji List on September 6, 2016.
The information still has no official confirmation, but it has been published by the media in Belgrade. Subjects of the investigation are, according to Serbian newspapers, not only military personnel but also some media representatives who are said to be close to the Croatian authorities and are suspected of passing on certain information.
According to media reports, following his arrest on Friday afternoon, Čolović told Serbian policemen that everything was clear, that he did nothing and that he was set up by his people, without specifying who those people might be. Apparently, these are people with whom he had been in contact for the past 20 years.
It is suspected that Čolović used his contacts to gather strategically important military information which he then forwarded to Croatian intelligence services and which Croatia, according to Serbian media, used to indict at least nine Serbian soldiers and officers. According to the media, Čolović “sold to Croatia information on the number of troops, situation in the military barracks, planned exercises, weaponry, and perpetrators of alleged war crimes”.
The investigation against Čolović lasted for six months during which Serbian intelligence services closely monitored his contacts with Croatian intelligence representatives, and now the investigation has been widened to include his colleagues in Serbia. Serbian media report that Čolović, during his visits to Dalmatia, was in contact with Croatian intelligence services which asked him to help them find witnesses for court proceedings against Serbians which Croatia indicted. In return, he received Croatian citizenship, money, financial aid in the reconstruction of his family properties, as well as a guarantee that he would not be prosecuted for his role in the army of rebel Serbs during the early 1990s.
Croatian authorities deny that Čolović has ever been a spy for Croatian intelligence services.
