Photo: Jaroslav Pap/TanjugThe deputy commander of the Niš detachment of the gendarmerie was arrested on Friday for illegal possession of weapons. This is not the first time that members of this police unit for special purposes find themselves in the public eye, but not as guardians of the law
The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that the deputy commander of the Niš gendarmerie detachment was deprived of his liberty for possessing a pistol with an obliterated serial number, five mines, eight shock bombs, hand grenades and over 5 pieces of ammunition. This news would not be so disturbing, if there was not a whole history of crimes committed by Niš gendarmes.
Members of the Niš detachment of the gendarmerie were frequently the subject of investigations by the Internal Control. Back in 2014, the Belgrade Center for Security Policy published a report on corruption in the police ranks. The Gendarmerie received a special chapter in it. One of the most famous names mentioned is Dragan Dikić, the officer of the Niš detachment in charge of intelligence affairs and the brother of the then gendarmerie commander Bratislava Dikić, formerly the commander of the Niš detachment.
The name of Dragan Dikić is also mentioned in the reports of the Personnel Management Service (SUK) within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. During 2012, he organized a team composed of several members of the gendarmerie, whose primary goal was to secure nightclubs. In one bar, he threatened the manager that he would "break his arms and legs", and he also led a gendarmerie operation in which, under the pretext of exercises, they searched private properties for gold.
On the other hand, Bratislav Dikić tried to obstruct the investigation conducted by SUK members against Dragan, and the deputies of the Democratic Party of Serbia accused him of participating in the incidents during the election for the mayor of Kosovska Mitrovica in civilian clothes in 2013. After his final departure from the gendarmerie and the police, he found himself in the public eye when, under suspicion of having organized it coup against Milo Đukanović, arrested in Montenegro in 2016. The charge of "coup d'état" was eventually dropped, but the question of how he got into the whole story in the first place remains open.
At the beginning of 2013, Đ.S. was killed by a bomb in Nis. (32), and the main suspects from the beginning were one officer and one member of the unit. Immediately before his death, the murdered man reported members of the gendarmerie to SUK for vandalism.
At the end of the same year, a gendarme shot from his car at a woman who was driving "too slowly" in front of him, and later he made the excuse that he was under the influence of alcohol. Another gendarme, a month later, killed a drug dealer from Niš with several shots to whom he owed money and for whom cocaine was used.
In 2014, a former member of Dikić's security, also a Niš gendarme, beat the guests of the "Proces" cafe, because they quarreled with the waiter. By the way, as "Blic" wrote at the time, he was on the list of 17 members of this unit against whom the Internal Control of the MUP was conducting an investigation on suspicion of being involved in money laundering, racketeering and violent behavior.
Over the years, the gendarmerie in Niš has become synonymous with corruption and criminal activities. Adequate control is lacking, and the investigations that are initiated are rarely brought to an end. As long as things function like this, instead of problematic individuals, the entire unit will have a public reputation as a "special purpose unit", but on the other side of the law.
FM/Južne vesti/Blic/Belgrade Center for Security Policy
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