In the early morning hours of February 4, 2021, members of the Security Information Agency (BIA) in cooperation with the police arrested Veljko Belivuk, the leader of an organized criminal group under the fan club "Principi" at Rudnik. On the same day, Marko Miljković, his right-hand man and 15 other persons were arrested. The order came from the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime, and this gang is charged with, among other things, murder, kidnapping, extortion and drug dealing.
Police Minister Aleksandar Vulin stated that "these are people who killed, tortured, kidnapped, committed the most terrible crimes". On the basis of the weapons found in their room at the Partizan stadium, the authorities first announced that they intended to liquidate Andrej Vučić, but later, allegedly, decided to assassinate the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.
By the way, Belivuk and Miljković were taken into custody five days before their arrest, and after their return from Montenegro, where they enjoyed the hospitality of Radoj Zvicer, one of the leaders of the Kavac clan. It is believed that Belivuk's gang was one of the branches of the "kavchan" in Belgrade, but with much greater powers and much more powerful than other subordinate groups.
Shortly after the arrest, the police also discovered a cottage in Ritopek, used for liquidations. Allegedly, nothing but weapons were found then, but when one of the arrested members of the clan "sang" later, a secret room with a meat grinder and a large amount of explosives was discovered.
Eight days after Belivuk and his team, the former head of the Criminal Police Department of Belgrade, Ilija Milacic, was arrested on suspicion of providing confidential information to the tabloids. Milacic was awarded a new position a few months earlier due to the results achieved in combating crime.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, announced at the end of February that he will show "grisly" pictures of the tortured victims of the clan on television with a national frequency. That's what happened on March 6, when Belivuk and his associates were remanded in custody.
In the same period, tabloids and some officials launched a fierce campaign against KRIK, accusing the journalists of this research portal of cooperation with Belivuk's gang. This happened after a press conference where a KRIK journalist asked Vučić why the Secretary General of the Government, Novak Nedic, would not be heard in the investigation even though he was linked to the clan. Namely, according to the criminal complaint of the Military Union of Serbia, in 2016, at the military range, Nedic practiced shooting with Belivuk, gendarme Nenad Vučković and the later liquidated Aleksandar Stanković, the leader of "Janjičar". Novak Nedić has not yet been included in the investigation.
NEW FACES ON THE WANTED ORDERS
The next MUP member to be handcuffed was Goran Papić, former deputy head of the Service for Combating Organized Crime (SBPOK). Papić is accused of returning an armored car to Marko Miljković in April 2020, bypassing the procedure. His lawyer Branislav Tapušković asked the Prosecutor's Office to examine as witnesses the former Minister of Police Nebojša Stefanović and the head of the Internal Control Sector of the Police Dejan Kovačević, since Papić defended himself by claiming that he was only following orders. The indictment was filed in October, he denied the accusations and explained that he did not even know that Miljković's car had been returned.
At the end of April, Belivuk's detention was extended for another three months, and the investigation still covered only the period after 2019, despite the fact that back in 2017, Belivuk was the first suspect in the murder of karate player Vlastimir Milošević on the tram tracks. At this stage of the investigation, his gang was suspected of the murders of Milan Ljepoja, Goran Veličković and Zdravko Radojević.
In June, SBPOK inspector Božidar Stolić was arrested on suspicion of giving information from the police to Belivuk's team for monetary compensation. According to the indictment filed in January of this year, data leaked through Stolic from the beginning of 2020 until his arrest. In the indictment, the prosecution did not establish who was the final recipient of the information after Belivuk and Miljković ended up in prison, although the first MUP man knew it immediately - according to Vulin, the inspector "continued to inform Radoj Zvicer".
INDICTMENT
The indictment against Belivuk's gang was expected at the beginning of August, but it came a little earlier. One of the reasons for the rush may be the fact that on July 5, 2021, Belivuk decided to, as he said, say something about the connections with people from the authorities who asked them for favors. Then he accused Vučić, Vulin, the president's brother Andrej and other godfathers and friends.
As he told the hearing, his connection with Vučić was Aleksandar Vidojević, aka Aca Rošavi, who was seen several times in the company of Danilo Vučić, the president's son. He allegedly met with Vučić directly on several occasions and performed various tasks for him - controlling other fan groups and preventing chanting against the President of Serbia in the stadium stands, intimidating taxi drivers not to protest against the company "Kargo", etc. Vučić denied all these allegations, and it is also interesting that Belivuk did not mention Nebojša Stefanović and his close associates; about Dijana Hrkalović, he said that she was against them.
The allegations were also denied by the president of the executive board of SNS, Darko Glišić, whom Belivuk identified as a long-time friend in his testimony and stated that he served as his direct link with Vučić when they suspected that Aca Rošava was transmitting messages in his own interest.
Be that as it may, an indictment was filed on July 30, 2021, against Belivuk and 30 other members of the group. The investigation expanded it, so now they are charged with five murders, kidnapping, torture, rape of one person, selling drugs and illegal possession of weapons. Lazar Vukićević and Aleksandar Gligorijević aka Puki were added to the list of persons liquidated by the clan. The key piece of evidence against the clan is the correspondence via the "Sky" application, which the members of the group used for secret communication and through which they sent each other pictures of mutilated victims. The American FBI is responsible for breaking the encryption of this application, which provided the materials collected in this way to the European police, including the Ministry of Interior of Serbia.
photo: Milena Anjela"KEY EVIDENCE OF THE PROSECUTION IS USED IN AN ILLEGAL WAY": Dejan Lazarević, lawyer of Belivuk and Miljković
Belivuk's and Miljković's lawyer Dejan Lazarevic tells "Vreme" that the prosecution's key evidence is not valid and is being used illegally. He explains that during February and March of last year, "Europol informed the state authorities of Serbia that there is operational knowledge that criminal acts are being committed" based on intercepted messages on "Sky". He adds that it can only be used in the pre-investigation procedure, but not in court, because, as he says, "Sky phones were obtained without the order of our judicial authorities, which is an illegal method."
One of the accused, Bojan Hrvatin, told the police what he allegedly did during the liquidations. It remains strange that the indictment does not include any links between the criminal group and state structures, despite many indications. Police officers who were previously arrested for abuse of position and cooperation with Belivuk were tried in completely separate proceedings.
Lazarevic adds that the prosecutor took it for granted that he "conducts the investigation according to his discretion", and that nothing that his clients proposed was taken into account.
Although Vučić called the indictment a "masterpiece", many things remained quite unclear. One of the "strange" details is that, according to records from the indictment, the BIA was watching the clan in the months leading up to the arrest, so the question arises as to how the murders went unnoticed. According to Lazarevic, that part is also disputed because there is no court order for monitoring and wiretapping before arrest.
After the indictment, there was a certain lull with Belivuk. However, he returns to the public scene in October, when the internal progressive showdown with Stefanović begins. Namely, yesterday his comrades accused him of hatching a plan against the president and cooperating with Belivuk, with the fact that it should be borne in mind that the former police minister was also mentioned because of the "Jovanjica" affair. Stefanović denied the accusations, reiterated his unquestioning loyalty to the president and shifted the blame to those who accuse him.
TURNOVER WITH DIJANA HRKALOVIĆ
photo: filip krainčanić / nova.rsMORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS: Dijana Hrkalović
In mid-October, there was a turn of events that completely surprised one part of the public, while others only reminded of what had been expected for a long time. Dijana Hrkalović, the former state secretary of the MUP, was arrested. Since she resigned from her position in 2019, she has not appeared in public much, but she advertised on social networks and told her followers that she was "still here".
The investigation against D. Hrkalović is being conducted due to influence peddling because she allegedly ordered the former head of the Service for Investigative Methods, Dejan Milenković, to commit the criminal offense of abuse of office. At the time, the judicial authorities did not specify what the crime was, but President Vučić said that she was arrested for the murder of Vlastimir Milošević. Namely, Belivuk was then the first suspect of being the perpetrator, so he became an accomplice, but in the end he was acquitted due to lack of evidence. The former state secretary was questioned before, but in the context of the wiretapping affair of President Vučić, in which Stefanović allegedly participated. By the way, the time of her arrest coincides with the media and progressive lynching against the current Minister of Defense.
The indictment against Veljko Belivuk's criminal group was confirmed on November 9, 2021. It was decided that the trial will be conducted by the panel of judge Zorana Trajković.
The director of the Partizan Football Club, Miloš Vazura, was also investigated for abuse of office. He allegedly maintained ties first with the "Janjičari", and later with the "Princips", and therefore with Belivuk. By the way, his godfather is the Secretary General of the Government, Novak Nedić, to whom the former vice-president of FC Partizan Vladimir Vuletić gave credit for the arrival of Vazura to Partizan in an interview for KRIK.
On November 15, 2021, the investigation against Belivuk was also launched by Montenegro, and it is accused that together with one of the leaders of the Kavac clan, Slobodan Kašćelan, and ten other people, he kidnapped and killed Milo Radulović, known as Captain. Montenegrin Special Prosecutor Saša Čađenović then reminded that Belivuk was also suspected of the murders of Damir Hadžić and Adis Spahić. Čađenović added that there is no evidence that Belivuk and Kašćelan belonged to the same clan, but that it is clear that they cooperated closely. This claim does not coincide with the position of the Serbian authorities, who have repeatedly stated that Radoje Zvicer was the superior of Belivuk, Marko Miljković and most of the accused. Their detention was extended on November 19, 2021, while Bojan Hrvatin and two other members of the clan who cooperated with the police were released to defend themselves.
Belivuk's wife, Bojana Belivuk, her mother, as well as the wives of Miljković and another member of the group, were soon arrested on suspicion that since 2015 they had invested illegally acquired money in real estate and thus "laundered" it. Aleksandar Kajmaković, the alleged owner of several Belgrade bars, was also questioned as a citizen, and the public speculated that Belivuk also "laundered" money from drug sales through him.
DRINK AT THE SORCERER
Dijana Hrkalović was accused, then released to defend herself, but was soon arrested again. Now the indictment specifies what exactly she is suspected of - that on her order, after the "murder on the tracks", Milenkovic delayed the delivery of Belivuk's phone from the expert examination to the prosecution, as well as that he had the wiretapped conversation of the lawyer Dragoslav Miša Ognjanović, who was killed, destroyed in 2018. Namely, Miša Ognjanović, as a long-time lawyer of Luka Bojović and Filip Korać, was a person of security interest to the investigators, and he was eavesdropped in a cafe in Vračar where he was sitting with Dragoslav Miloradović. The actual target of the "bug" was the latter, but, according to the indictment and the writings of KRIK, Ognjanović talked a lot about Hrkalovićka's connections with the underworld, how Stefanović "holds" her, that she destroyed the evidence for Belivuk, as well as some details from her love affair. life. Milenković destroyed 40 minutes of the recorded conversation, but he justified himself to the prosecutor that there was still a recording on the matrix, that is, the camera. Miloradović was killed 11 days after the meeting, and Ognjanović two months later. Neither murder has been solved.
Dijana Hrkalović allegedly also deleted the footage from two security cameras that recorded Belivuk on the tracks, but she was not charged for that. During the wiretapped conversation, Ognjanović said that "two out of seven" remained, referring to the evidence from the cameras, so it is not exactly clear why the investigation determined that she deleted only two videos and not five. She is also charged with illegal wiretapping of Darko Elez, who organized criminal groups for liquidations for various clients. The prosecution is asking for five years in prison.
Belivuk remains in custody until further notice. Judge Trajković has been on sick leave for some time, so it is not even known when the trial will begin. In the new year, Minister of Internal Affairs Aleksandar Vulin pointed out that "there has not been a single mafia murder" since the Belivuk-Miljković clan was broken up. Of course, he added that President Vučić gained numerous powerful enemies with this war against the mafia. The story of the assassination has been reactivated, and now it has been extended from Belivuk to Radoj Zvicer as well.
Attorney Lazarevic expects this trial to last several years.
