In the new issue: Once the services used criminals, now criminals use the services

Saša Janković was the first ombudsman of Serbia, a man who, with his associates, founded and developed the institution of the Protector of Citizens in the period from 2007 to 2017. Very soon after its establishment, it becomes the most important state control mechanism that represents the interests of the citizens and in which they unequivocally trust. After the invitation of a part of the public (100 public figures) to be a candidate in the presidential elections in 2017, Saša Janković resigned from the position of ombudsman and went to Aleksandar Vučić. In the elections, he won almost 600.000 votes in a perfectly unequal battle. After the election, he founded the Movement of Free Citizens, of which he was the first president. In December of the following year, he resigns, and then stops being actively involved in politics. His primary vocation is a lawyer, and he specialized in national and global security at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. Today he is an international consultant for human rights and control in the security sector.

"WEATHER" Alexander Vulin, head of the BIA, he was blacklisted by the US government, among other things, because "involvement in transnational organized crime, illegal narcotics operations and abuse of public office". How this man found himself at the head of the secret service?

SASA JANKOVIĆ: Vulin was appointed to all positions, including the head of the BIA, because of his loyalty to Aleksandar Vučić, without whom he would have been a minor political figure...

 What's up, except loyalty, can say about the role of Vulin in Vučić's government?

Despite all the ridicule towards Vučić, who on the other hand is pushing himself superficially, his government is organized. Vulin's role in it is to be a prominent Russian lover and anti-Westerner, and he plays it in his own way: vividly, but with heart. And it won't give out when it thickens. There are also those whose task is reversed, to flirt with the West, and Vučić pushes both according to the need and to the audience that is important to him at that moment. The fact that he has Vulin, and the others, and the third, enables him to politically combine, choose and change his focus - to lead some kind of policy. What kind, that's another thing, and I think - in many ways wrong and harmful...

Read on full interview with Saša Janković in the weekly "Vreme" from Thursday (July 20)

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