Committee: Nobody ordered monitoring of political parties

BELGRADE - The Serbian parliament Security Services Control Committee said on Thursday that nobody in the Defence Ministry and the Military Security Agency (MSA) issued instructions or orders to MSA members to gather information and findings about political party activities.

The committee established this on grounds of the report on extraordinary MSA supervision carried out after Serbian Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic presented a document dated November 14, 2014 at one of the sessions, claiming that the text contains allegations that MSA members monitored the protest of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

The committee concluded that the data on activities by SRS supporters in November 2014 were obtained through exchange of findings with other security bodies in Vojvodina, the parliament posted on its website.

The committee found that MSA gathered data about the safety of protected individuals and objects and not about political activities, which was ceded to the Serbian Ministry of Interior Affairs on grounds of a written request. The committee backed the proposition for the National Security Council to adopt a decision on counter-intelligence and security protection of the Serbian prime minister as soon as possible.

Photo Tanjug Video, camera operator Zoran Milenkovic (illustration, archive)