Podgorica - Italian organized crime prosecutors asked a court in Bari to suspend charges against Montengrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, Podgorica media reported Thursday. Prosecutors filed the motion to scrap the case because Djukanovic, president or premier of Montenegro since 1991, enjoys diplomatic immunity, the daily Dan said quoting the Italian news agency ANSA.
Djukanovic won another poll by a landslide in March and would extend his reign by another another four years and a judge in the court in Bari - across the Adriatic from Montenegro - was expected to approve the motion to "archive" the case.
Italian prosecutors investigated Djukanovic, under suspicion of having controlled cigarette-smuggling in the 1990s, running it as a state business.
He was first on a list of 15 suspects which includes some of his closest aides, but also shadowy underworld figures from the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, the Croatian weekly Nacional said.
In 2003, prosecutors combatting organized crime asked judges in Naples to issue a warrant for Djukanovic's arrest, but the motion was turned down owing to his diplomatic immunity.
He and Podgorica officials claimed that hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of cigarettes only transited Montenegro, which had been under a 1990s United Nations trade embargo as a part of Yugoslavia.
Set to become a fifth time, with only a five-year presidential term interrupting his direct rule over Montenegro, Djukanovic relinquished the office only once, after elections in late 2006.
Though his Democratic Party of Socialists then also won, Djukanovic, 47, said he wanted to retire from politics and run his businesses.
However, after reportedly receiving notification in 2007 that he may be indicted in Italy, he returned to the office in early 2008, replacing his heir, Zeljko Sturanovic.
Last year Djukanovic volunteered a visit the court in Bari, which handles the case, to testify. His cabinet had said that Djukanovic answered questions over six-and-a-half hours.
It was neither immediately clear when the Bari court would move against other suspects in the case, nor whether it would unpack Djukanovic's file from the archives when he loses or gives immunity.
