Thanks to the fact that he is an official of the Serbian Progressive Party Vladimir Djukanovic filed a lawsuit against Radar journalist Vuk Cvijić, evidence is available to the public - an official note, made in July 2022 by the then head of the Department for the Fight against Drugs of the Belgrade Police Slobodan Milenkovic. He wrote that it was Đukanović and the former owner of the Objektiv portal, Aleksandar Papić, who, through an intermediary, offered him a bribe of 100.000 euros to cover up the case of Jovanjic, and that he was told to do so on behalf of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.
The inspector's official note, submitted by the MUP at the court's request, is not marked "strictly confidential" or marked with any level of secrecy. This indicates that the authorities tried to prevent information about the police officer's official note from reaching the public who arrested Predrag Koluvia, co-owner of Jovanjica.
The public first learned about offering a bribe to the inspector on July 16, 2022, from Zdenko Tomanović, Milenkovic's lawyer. Tomanović announced that the inspector refused a bribe of 100.000 euros from two officials of the SNS, as well as that "it would be necessary for the prosecution to inform the public about the checks it has undertaken since it received the document stating that two influential members of the SNS and, through an intermediary, they offer Milenkovic career advancement and 100.000 euros if they agree on Jovanjica".
Photo: Sava Radovanović / TanjugSlobodan Milenkovic
Officially misleading the public
Just a few hours later, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, headed by Nenad Stefanović, announced that the note was "strictly confidential", and the lawyer Tomanović was publicly admonished for allegedly violating the law.
The mentioned note is marked with the secrecy mark "strictly confidential", and it is worrisome that part of the content of the note was published by the acting lawyer in certain media, which violated the Law on Confidentiality of Data," reads the announcement of this prosecution dated July 16, 2022.
When the journalist Vuk Cvijić wrote a text in September 2023 in which he conveyed the content of Milenkovic's note, former MUP State Secretary Dijana Hrkalović, accused before the Special Court, also spoke out. She was a guest on TV Happy and said that the fact that the lawyer Tomanović partially and the journalist Cvijić fully made available the content of the official note is a criminal offense, because the note is classified as confidential.
On the official note of Milenkovic, there is no mark of secrecy, which a secret document, according to the Data Secrecy Act, must have.
If what the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade claimed was true, the note should have read "Strictly confidential". Also, if this note was strictly confidential, it would not have been filed with an "ordinary" office number, but with a number preceded by "SP" (strictly confidential).
Photo: Ministry of the Interior of SerbiaJovanjica
What the law prescribes
Even if someone wanted to mark it as "strictly confidential", according to the law, it could not be, says lawyer and former Commissioner for Information of Public Importance Rodoljub Šabić.
"The law prescribes the conditions under which a certain document can carry the level of confidentiality." In order for a document to be 'strictly confidential', the information it contains must endanger the security of Serbia if disclosed. "The information that two SNS officials are offering a bribe to the police inspector to cover up the investigation, even if that investigation also concerned Jovanjica, cannot be something that can threaten the security of Serbia," explains Šabić. Milenković's note is no different from those that police officers write every day and which are not secret.
The public prosecutor's office did not answer our question: Why did they state in the statement that Slobodan Milenkovic's official note was marked as "strictly confidential"?
Another important fact, which we learned thanks to Đukanović's lawsuit against the journalists of "Radar", is the selective action of the prosecution. In the same statement in which the Belgrade Higher Prosecutor's Office states that the note is "strictly confidential", it was also stated that it was forwarded to the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime.
Djukanovic confirmed at the last hearing against the journalist that the prosecution did not take any action regarding Milenkovic's note. Claiming that he did not offer a bribe, he stated: "And if that's the case, why didn't the VJT (Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade) call me to give a statement and that it was interested in the case at all."
Since the note was delivered to the prosecutor's office, there is no information that its allegations have been verified. Unlike this case, the High Prosecutor's Office reacted promptly after Dijana Hrkalović accused Milenkovic of selling drugs through the regime media and invited the inspector for an interview.
Photo: Marko Dragoslavić/FoNetMarijuana plantation owner Predrag Koluvija
Chronology of persecution
June 18, 2022: Interview as a prelude to persecution
The pro-regime "Objektiv", originally owned by Aleksandar Papić who, according to the note, offered bribes, broadcasts an interview with Dijana Hrkalović.
She tried to discredit the Jovanjic case by claiming that Nebojša Stefanović and police chief Slobodan Milenković "set up" it.
Otherwise, the godfathers Papić and Stefanović, as well as Hrkalović and Đukanović, publicly accused each other of collaborating with the mafia.
June 21, 2022: Indecent offer
Slobodan Milenkovic's official note, as published by the weekly "Radar", states:
"On June 21, 2022, around 18-19 p.m., I was contacted by an acquaintance who told me through messages, through the Signal application, that we should meet to broadcast something live to me. Around 21:100.000, I found myself with the same person near Novopazarska street in the municipality of Vračar. On that occasion, she told me that Aleksandar Papić, the former closest associate of Minister Nebojša Stefanović, and lawyer Đukanović, a lawyer in the Jovanjic case, had sent her to talk to me, or rather, that they were ready to do everything to improve my career, that they would to give me XNUMX euros just to meet with them and to 'agree' on how to proceed in the case of Jovanjica, as well as to put all the responsibility on the Minister of Defense Nebojša Stefanović.
Also, the appointee told me that Papić and Đukanović are presenting themselves as negotiators on behalf of President Aleksandar Vučić. Also, the appointed person told me that she knew my answer, but that she was asked to convey a message to me - an offer."
Milenković then explains in an official note what happened next and how he responded to the offer:
"On that occasion, I told her that I am the head of the Department for the fight against drugs and that I am not interested in any negotiations, and that I am especially not interested in telling untruths on any basis." I also told her that I can only talk to competent government authorities at their official invitation. In the further course of the conversation, I said that I, as well as my people from the department, are constantly working in the interest of the state, that there is no need for any mediators to explain the situation to me. I also told her that if any of the government authorities need me, they can always find me. I also told her that only the president's office can negotiate on his behalf."
June 22, 2022: Indecent Offer - Day Two
According to the official note, Inspector Milenkovic was contacted again that day by an "intermediary connection", as well as by Papić.
"Around 10,06:XNUMX a.m., Aleksandar Papić tried to reach me through the Signal application, but I did not answer the phone." After that, an acquaintance called me from my phone through the Signal application and said that he was there with Aleksandar Papić and wanted to hear me, which he confirmed by his quips during our conversation. Which I refused," the note states.
Public accusations from the top of the government and tabloid attacks that Slobodan Milenković, the head of the Department for the fight against drugs of the Belgrade police at the time, and other inspectors of that department, by discovering Jovanjica and arresting Predrag Koluvija, actually tried to carry out an attack on the family of the president of the country lasted for a few minutes from the beginning of the case.
However, Hrkalović said during an interview with "Objektiv" about inspector Milenkovic: "I hear that he is doing drugs now." Here he cleans, here he works. I can't wait, when it is revealed, what the opposition will say about him and whether he will be their hero even then."
Shortly after the interview, but also the offer of 100 euros for Milenkovic, as stated in his note, the inspector receives an invitation for a hearing in his capacity as a citizen at the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade
June 23, 2022: From tabloids to MUP
By order of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office, Dijana Hrkalović and Nebojša Stefanović were summoned by the Internal Control Sector, where she repeated all the accusations against Inspector Milenkovic that she had previously made before the cameras of "Objektiva".
However, the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime refuses to invite Hrkalović for an additional interview and to believe her words, unlike the head of the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović.
Photo: Tanjug/Sava RadovanovićInspectors who discovered Jovanjica
July 5, 2022: Reaction and Aftermath
Inspector Milenkovic realizes that the indecent offers have turned into growing pressure and that he should have taken them seriously. So, on that date, an official note is created, which he forwards to his superiors, and they then send it to the Prosecutor's Office.
However, the Special Department for Suppression of Corruption of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade does not investigate the allegations in the inspector's note, but sends him an invitation for a hearing. As VJT announced to the public, the inspector was invited to an interview in order to comment on the allegations made by former high-ranking MUP officials.
Throughout July, the pressure grew and the Belgrade High Prosecutor's Office repeatedly called for an interview with Milenkovic.
Let's remind you, the prosecutor who was hired for those hearings welcomed him with a mug with the BIA logo, the tabloids are targeting him as a criminal, information is coming that he will be killed... During that time, the accused for Jovanjica, among them BIA and MUP operatives who, according to the indictment, were the guards of the "biggest skunk factory" in Europe are defending themselves from freedom, and the trials for that case are being delayed.
Soon, Milenkovic was removed from the post of head of the Department for the fight against drugs, and he and his colleague Dušan Mitić were given police protection due to information that a million euros had already been paid for their murder.
Photo: N1Jovanjica
About reputation and honor...
When Đukanović and the journalist, whom he sued for damage to reputation and honor, proposed evidence, the representative of the SNS MP objected to the defendant's proposal to have Inspector Milenković testify. The court said it would decide on that later. Recently, Đukanović stated during a correspondence on the X network with "Danasa" journalist Uglješa Bokić: "We insisted that he come. He avoided. He finds reasons not to come," Đukanović wrote.
At the hearing, when the official note was delivered to the court, the progressive official tried to dispute it, stating that it was dated incorrectly. However, the official note was written on the 2020 form, so that year is indicated in the header of the document. Everything else in the note is neatly filed.
The event that Milenkovic states in the note took place on June 21, 2022, while the date of writing of the note is stated in the header as July 5, 2020. If you look carefully, the reference number of the note - which is entered by a third party, who files the note - is 1063/22, which unequivocally indicates that the note was written in 2022.
Neither the MUP nor the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade dispute that the note was written in 2022.
What characterizes Jovanjica is pointing people from the authorities to downplay or relativize the case, and the target of persecution is precisely Milenkovic and his team.
At the time when he wrote the note, in which he states that he was offered a bribe, the head of the MUP was Aleksandar Vulin, and the director of the BIA was Bratislav Gašić. For Gašić, inspector Dušan Mitić testified at the trial for Jovanjica that he was in regular contact with Koluvija. Vulin, as Minister of Labor, was hoeing Jovanjica in front of the TV cameras. A few months before the Belgrade Higher Prosecutor's Office ordered that Inspector Milenkovic be interrogated because of Hrkalović's statements, Nenad Stefanović became the head of that Prosecutor's Office. The media wrote that he was elected to that position at the suggestion of Vulin.
By the way, Vladimir Đukanović, in addition to defending Hrkalović and Koluvija, also represents Milan Kendija, a former officer of the Unit for the Protection of Certain Persons and Objects, in the case of Jovanjic.
It is interesting for Đukanović that he became a lawyer at the age of 40. In the modest six years of his legal career, he has been a defense attorney in some of the most significant criminal proceedings. He also represents Andrej Vučić, the brother of the President of Serbia.
Đukanović was the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Justice and a member of the Committee for the Control of Security Services. In the new convocation, he is the head of the permanent delegation of the National Assembly of Serbia to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Five years after the discovery, according to the indictment of the largest skunk factory in Europe, the trial of the accused is still ongoing. The police inspectors who discovered Jovanjica have been replaced, and their persecution continues.
The text was created in collaboration with "Vremen", "Radar" and "Danas".
