An alleged leaked sex tape featuring two of the most high-profile officials in Montenegro — a married presidential adviser and a younger subordinate — has forced both politicians to resign amid the scandal.
Mirjana Pajković, the high-profile former director general, who is responsible for promoting and protecting human rights at the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, announced on Friday that she was resigning from her position, according to Montenegrin newspaper Pobjeda. The government has been rocked by a sex scandal since an online video surfaced that shows Pajković engaging in sexual activity with Dejan Vukšić, a married former head of the national security agency and onetime adviser to President Jakov Milatović.
Mixing Sex with Politics
In her statement, Pajković urged "all women" not to accept the notion that they should stay quiet when they are targeted or wronged. "When I myself was exposed to the extreme violence that I posted on social networks, where the first person next to the president of the country, the first former person of the National Security Agency, very persistently and at length during the entire conversation told me that there would be no place for me and no life in Montenegro," she said, claiming Milatović failed to act in the scandal.
Pajković said she was resigning because of personal reasons, but also leveled criticism at Vukšić, claiming he had threatened to use the video to intimidate her into silence.
"That my boss would see something that compromised me, where he clearly and directly threatened me that he had compromising material for me, why did I keep quiet at that moment?" Pajković said, according to the outlet. "He told me this personally after I refused to act the way he asked me."
Pajković said she did not know about the video that Vukšić was allegedly using to blackmail her, but said she feared for her safety because of his senior position in the security apparatus.
"For example, when someone is blackmailing you. Someone more powerful will ask you for a favor, some behavior that you do not want at that moment, and if you refuse to do it, you will be handed over to someone who is the embodiment of the highest state authority. No one will physically hit you, this is the 21st century, but they very clearly want to destroy your life on all grounds," she wrote.
As Dirty as It Gets
As the scandal dragged on, Pajković and Vukšić each rejected the other's allegations and filed criminal complaints. At one point, a threatening call was even traced to a landline within the president's office. One of the complaints filed by Pajković accused someone of illegally sharing explicit material, including a photo of her.
Vukšić stepped down in late December, also citing personal reasons, after Pajković went to police over the explicit content that had appeared online.
"I reject all inaccurate, incomplete, and tendentious allegations by which, without evidence, responsibility is being attributed to me for the violation of [Pajković's] privacy and the distribution of the disputed recordings. I saw that content for the first time only when it began to circulate illegally on social networks," Vukšić charged, according to the outlet.
Vukšić claimed that Pajković breached his privacy by illegally taking possession of the phone that allegedly recorded him making a threatening call to her from a landline in Milatović's office.
"The words I addressed to [Pajković] on that occasion, which were selectively published with a time delay of one year and three months, were an immediate reaction to the theft and abuse of my phone," he said.
Vukšić claimed that in March, he received a call threatening to release audio recordings unless he withdrew a judge's nomination to the constitutional court, and he alleged that Pajković was involved in the group behind the threat.
He said Pajković was later questioned by authorities after he filed a police complaint accusing her of attempted extortion, theft, and misuse of a phone.
Vukšić also alleged that Pajković included the recorded "threat" in one of her criminal filings in January, presenting it as a new incident.
It remains unclear when the alleged sex tape was recorded.
