Darko Saric and accused members of his criminal group, who were tried for the attempted murder of Nebojša Joksović, were found guilty in Special court in Belgrade.
Saric was sentenced to six years in prison because he organized a criminal group whose members committed several crimes.
His lawyer, Dejan Lazarevic, was sentenced to a prison sentence of three years and six months, and his own brother, Duško Šarić, was sentenced to a prison sentence of one year.
This is a first-instance verdict against which the defense and the prosecution have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal in Belgrade.
The group led by Darko Šarić is charged with a number of serious crimes, including planning the murder of a witness and associate of Nebojša Joksović. Joksović was a witness-collaborator in the second proceedings against Sarić.
Darko Šarić's activities
The members of the group were declared guilty of the criminal acts of association for the purpose of committing criminal acts, illegal production, possession, carrying and trafficking of weapons and explosive substances, causing general danger, abuse of position and criminal acts from the Data Confidentiality Act.
In January 2010, Serbia issued an international arrest warrant for Darko Šarić.
The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime filed the first indictment for cocaine smuggling in April 2010 against the criminal organization led by Darko Sarić.
Sarić's trial for international cocaine smuggling began in September 2010, and he voluntarily surrendered in March 2014.
He was first sentenced to 20 years in prison, which was overturned by the Court of Appeal. In a repeated trial, this time he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for smuggling 5,7 tons of cocaine from South America to the countries of Western Europe.
How the conflict between Šarić and Joksović began
The conflict between Šarić and Joksović, childhood friends, arose when Joksović agreed with the prosecution to become an cooperating witness and reveal all the secrets of yesterday's closest associate.
Joksović said that he received orders directly from Šarić, which earned him the position of main witness-collaborator. He described that he was in charge of middlemen who sold the drug further in Italy. Key for the prosecution was Joksović's testimony about the seizure of drugs in Italy.
"Saric asked for a favor. The Italian police arrested a group of people in one apartment. The key to another apartment where cocaine was stored was left in that apartment, so Darko asked me if I had someone who would pick the locks of that apartment and take the cocaine out. The deal did not happen, because the Italian police found the key and seized the cocaine after a few days. It was about 300 kilograms," said Joksović at the time.
He decided to betray Saric because he felt neglected by the group. As an example, he cited the fact that they did not even give him 50 euros for the canteen in the prison.
On the contrary, they began to threaten him, extort money and disparage him. On the other hand, Šarić told the court that his friends had been warning him about Joksović for years and that they would deceive him, but he did not pay attention to it.
Attacks on Joksović
After he decided to speak about Darko Šarić's business, under mysterious circumstances, attacks on the property of Nebojša Joksović began. In January 2020, more than 20 bullets were fired at his bar in the Belgrade neighborhood of Žarkovo. Also, a bomb was thrown at a cafe in that Belgrade neighborhood in 2011, and a printing shop owned by him was shot at from a cannon and the premises of his company were set on fire.
The most brutal crime in the war between Šarić and Joksović was when Radojica Joksović, a close relative of the witness-collaborator, was killed in 2012. An explosive device was then placed under his "audi" which was activated in the Belgrade neighborhood of Bele vode, and Nebojša Joksović himself accused Darko Šarić at the trial of being directly behind this liquidation.
In the meantime, a new trial of Darko Šarić's criminal group began in the Special Court in Belgrade, precisely for the attempted murder of Joksović.
The Šarić brothers and 13 other people were accused of a number of serious crimes, including attempts to kill the witness-collaborator Joksović, as well as placing explosives under the car of Goran Nikolašević. The plan of the criminal group was, if they did not kill Joksović, that he would be discredited as a witness-collaborator and that he would lose the aforementioned status.
The defendants wanted to show that Joksović, after receiving the status of witness-collaborator, continued to commit criminal acts, that is, that he prepared the murder of Goran Nikolašević, a witness in the proceedings against Šarić, even though members of Šarić's group were behind the explosives.
Source: Nova
