The Murder of Slavoljub Šćekić and the Final 2026 Verdict

The inspector and the investigation

Šćekić headed the police unit responsible for suppressing general crime. In 2005, he was working on a series of explosive attacks at the construction site of the Splendid hotel in Bečići. Court findings later connected those attacks to an attempt to extort the hotel’s owners. The prosecution case was that Šćekić’s investigative progress made him a target.

Shortly after midnight on 30 August 2005, Šćekić was attacked near his family home in the Tološi district of Podgorica. He died at the scene. This account avoids unnecessary wound detail because the location, timing, investigative context and judicial findings explain the case without graphic description.

Why the Splendid investigation mattered

Bombs had been planted at the hotel construction site in Budva during 2005. The indictment described a criminal group using the attacks to pressure the business owners for money. The final Supreme Court statement said the lower courts had explained the evidence concerning both the explosive devices and the circumstances of Šćekić’s murder.

Earlier judgments found that Saša Boreta and Ljubo Bigović instigated the killing, while Milan Šćekić and Ljubo Vujadinović carried it out. The final 2026 ruling preserved 30-year sentences for all four, but its public summary emphasizes the validity of the evidence and fairness of the appellate procedure rather than restating every factual role.

A case that repeatedly returned to court

1. 30 August 2005 — Šćekić was killed outside his home in Podgorica.
2. 2006 — Prosecutors filed the indictment against defendants linked to the murder and the hotel attacks.
3. 2009 onward — The first judgment began a cycle of appeals, reversals and renewed proceedings.
4. 2019 — Montenegro’s Constitutional Court found fair-trial violations in earlier proceedings; a Supreme Court decision then returned the case for a new appellate trial.
5. 24 September 2025 — The Court of Appeal again sentenced Boreta, Bigović, Vujadinović and Milan Šćekić to 30 years each.
6. 8 May 2026 — The Supreme Court rejected the defense appeals and confirmed the appellate judgment, making it final.

The defendants and final sentences

• Saša Boreta — 30 years.
• Ljubo Bigović — 30 years.
• Ljubo Vujadinović — 30 years.
• Milan Šćekić — 30 years.

The sentences cover aggravated murder, causing general danger and other criminal offenses. The identical terms should not obscure the court’s findings about differentiated conduct. Nor should the final outcome erase the extraordinary length and procedural complexity of the case.

What the Supreme Court decided

The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal had relied on legally valid evidence after excluding material previously deemed inadmissible. It found no essential legal error, no violation of the defendants’ right to defense and no breach of the guarantee that the case receive two levels of judicial consideration.

The court referred to witness testimony, material evidence and expert findings. Its public statement also addressed the use of a protected witness and concluded that the defense had been given an opportunity to question witnesses consistent with fair-trial standards.

The distinction between a final verdict and a simple case

The criminal case has a final domestic judgment as of 8 May 2026.

That label describes the current legal status. It does not imply that two decades of delay were unimportant or that every public allegation surrounding the murder was established in court. Earlier judgments were overturned for procedural reasons, and the final conviction came only after evidence was reassessed under the governing rules.

Victim and public impact

Šćekić was killed because, according to the final line of judicial findings, his work threatened an extortion operation connected to organized crime. The murder struck not only his family and colleagues but the capacity of public institutions to investigate powerful criminal actors. For years, relatives and civil-society monitors marked each anniversary without a final verdict.

The 2026 ruling ended the domestic merits litigation against these four defendants. It cannot restore the years lost to repeated proceedings, but it supplies a verifiable endpoint that earlier versions of the case did not have.

Editorial boundaries

• The page distinguishes indictment allegations, earlier findings and the final 2026 judgment.
• It does not conflate the unrelated Duško Jovanović murder with this case, even though Šćekić’s police work has been discussed in reporting about other investigations.
• It does not treat every person named in older reporting as convicted.
• Graphic details and speculative claims about uncharged actors are omitted.
• The illustration is symbolic and is not represented as a crime-scene image.

Sources

1. Supreme Court of Montenegro — final judgment announcement, 8 May 2026.
2. RTCG — Supreme Court confirmation and sentences, 8 May 2026.
3. Vijesti — final verdict and appellate history, 8 May 2026.
4. Human Rights Action — renewed trial chronology, 1 August 2025.
5. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — procedural history after seventeen years, 7 October 2022.
6. Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro — case history and alleged motive, 2015.

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