CAT/C/29/D/161/2000
page 3
The facts as presented by the complainants
2.1
On 14 April 1995 at around 10 p.m., the Danilovgrad Police Department received a report
indicating that two Romani minors had raped S.B., a minor ethnic Montenegrin girl. In response
to this report, around midnight, the police entered and searched a number of houses in the
Bozova Glavica Roma settlement and brought into custody all of the young male Romani men
present in the settlement (all of them presently among the complainants to this Committee).
2.2
The same day, around midnight, two hundred ethnic Montenegrins, led by relatives and
neighbours of the raped girl, assembled in front of the police station and publicly demanded that
the Municipal Assembly adopt a decision expelling all Roma from Danilovgrad. The crowd
shouted slogans addressed to the Roma, threatening to “exterminate” them and “burn down”
their houses.
2.3
Later, two Romani minors confessed under duress. On 15 April, between 4 and 5 a.m.,
all of the detainees except those who confessed were released from police custody. Before their
release, they were warned by the police to leave Danilovgrad immediately with their families
because they would be at risk of being lynched by their non-Roma neighbours.
2.4
At the same time, police officer Ljubo Radovic came to the Bozova Glavica Roma
settlement and told the Romani residents of the settlement that they must evacuate the settlement
immediately. The officer’s announcement caused panic. Most residents of the settlement fled
towards a nearby highway, where they could take buses for Podgorica. Only a few men and
women remained in the settlement to safeguard their homes and livestock. At approximately
5 a.m., police officer Ljubo Radovic returned to the settlement, accompanied by police inspector
Branko Micanovic. The officers told the remaining Roma still in their homes (including some of
the complainants) to leave Danilovgrad immediately, as no one could guarantee their safety or
provide them with protection.
2.5
The same day, at around 8 a.m., a group of non-Roma residents of Danilovgrad entered
the Bozova Glavica Roma settlement, hurling stones and breaking windows of houses owned by
the complainants. Those Roma who had still not left the settlement (all of them presently among
the complainants to this Committee) were hidden in the cellar of one of the houses from which
they eventually managed to flee through the fields and woods towards Podgorica.
2.6
In the course of the morning of 15 April, a police car repeatedly patrolled the deserted
Bozova Glavica settlement. Groups of non-Roma residents of Danilovgrad gathered in different
locations in the town and in the surrounding villages. Around 2 p.m. the non-Roma crowd
arrived in the Bozova Glavica settlement - in cars and on foot. Soon a crowd of at least several
hundred non-Roma (according to different sources, between 400 and 3,000 persons were present)
assembled in the then deserted Roma settlement.
2.7
Between 2 and 3 p.m., the crowd continued to grow and some began to shout: “We shall
evict them!” “We shall burn down the settlement!” “We shall raze the settlement!” Shortly after
3 p.m., the demolition of the settlement began. The mob, with stones and other objects, first
broke windows of cars and houses belonging to Roma and then set them on fire. The crowd also
destroyed and set fire to the haystacks, farming and other machines, animal feed sheds, stables,