A group of young men and women from the organization "Students win" presented at a press conference in Belgrade serious indications that their phones were infected with the Pegasus spyware and that everything happened during the elections in ten municipalities and cities across Serbia, at the end of March.
Representatives of the SHARE foundation said that there were similar, individual cases before, especially after some journalists, politicians or local activists stayed in police stations, where BIA operatives had unhindered access to their phones for a long period of time.
It is about software developed by the NSO Group company and which allows the user to, without interruption and without physical access, gain insight into the screen of someone's phone, into the complete contents of the device and even to remotely turn on the camera and microphone, as well as to see where the owner of the device is in real time using GPS.
Unlike some earlier similar software, which were allegedly installed while the owner gave a statement at the police station (see antrfile), Pegasus can be activated without physical contact and even without clicking on the received infected link. Allegedly, everything can be done through the so-called "zero click", that is, it is not necessary for the owner to do anything.
STUDENTS PROVIDED VERIFIED INFORMATION
The director of research at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCBP) Predrag Petrović told "Vreme" that the students did not just present unverified allegations, but very specific information, verified by credible international institutions that specialize in digital forensics.
"It is not the first such case from Serbia in which they worked and discovered the illegal use of software for secret phone surveillance. It is not only the statements of the victims, but there are also serious digital traces that spy software was used," he said.
The representative of the BCBP said that it is particularly worrying that in some of those cases a trace of an IP address was observed that led to the BIA, which, under normal conditions, together with what the students presented at the press conference, would be enough for the prosecution to initiate a preliminary investigation. According to his opinion, there is no possibility to "cover" such activity from the legal side in any way, because tools for digital surveillance are not adequately regulated in the legislation of Serbia:
"The BIA law was adopted in 2022 and was amended, but it is not precise enough when it comes to those tools. Adequate use of that tool is something that is difficult to control. Secret surveillance should be focused only on communications, and we know that those tools record everything. They have access to the entire contents of the phone and, therefore, to the entire life of a person, because the phone monitors everything we do during the day. It is a huge threat to privacy, because in practice it is not possible to track whether the subject of processing was focused only on what is really part of the investigation," he said.
Petrović said that there is no doubt that some government agency must be behind it, because the Pegaz software has only states for its clients, that is, agencies that deal with the fight against terrorism and organized crime and does not sell its program to civilians.
AFFAIR "WOOLINGATE" AND PORN SITES
Although it was previously assumed that the government and security services routinely monitor the communications of their political opponents, the first convincing evidence that this is a reality appeared in early 2020. The Minister of Defense at the time, Aleksandar Vulin, in the ministry's official announcement, criticized parts of the text written for the newspaper "Nedeljnik" by the opposition leader at the time, and the current ambassador of Serbia to the USA, Dragan Šutanovac.
The problem was that the text with which Vulin argued was not, at that moment, published in "Nedeljnik", but was still only the subject of an email correspondence between the author and the editors of that paper. That "detail" gave arguments to that part of the public who believed that the secret services were monitoring and eavesdropping on journalists and the opposition.
In the damage control action, Vulin claimed that the statement of the Ministry of Defense was a "gross mistake of the PR team", that it was a political montage and that he, in fact, argued with parts of the interview that Šutanovac gave to the newspaper "Kurir", but it was seen from the statement that parts of the text were mentioned that were not in "Kurir", but were in the text that "Nedeljnik" had not published until that moment.
The ever-vigilant prosecutor's office, of course, did not investigate how it was possible for the PR team of the Ministry of Defense to have insight into the email correspondence between the opposition champion and the independent weekly, but Vulin made a bizarre political move and through his party colleague Đorđe Komlenski announced a complaint against himself, in order to establish the truth in that case.
Similar political oddities were not absent in the case of the alleged eavesdropping of students. Although no one accused him but the BIA, the first to speak was the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, who said that the students did not present any relevant allegations, but meaningless suspicions without any evidence.
Vučić said that he was actually the zero victim of the secret service's eavesdropping. Allegedly, this happened not only when he was the opposition champion but also after he became the president, but he did not want to make a big drama out of it, but "put up with it like a man and kept quiet".
Vučić's political ally, deputy and official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Vladimir Đukanović, said that he did not believe that the BIA was listening in on the students, but that he knew that such viruses are the easiest to get from people who visit pornographic sites on their phones. Đukanović did not explain how he knew that the easiest way to infect a phone with a virus is on porn sites, but for the purposes of the text, we will assume that he learned this from a friend.
The BIA itself reacted, calling the accusations "trivial sensationalism" and stating that it works exclusively in accordance with the laws of Serbia. Although this appears to be a denial, experts from the security sector point out that the statement worded in this way actually represents a kind of admission that the secret service was involved, but that everything was done according to the law.
Namely, the sentence according to which the BIA works "in accordance with the laws", according to those sources, means that they did listen to the students (journalists, politicians...), but that they covered it with a "fake" that they believe exempts them from responsibility. When the BIA takes an interest in someone, the same sources claim, through its agents in the media or political parties, it releases an accusation, usually that so-and-so cooperates with the secret services of another country, that he is a traitor, a foreign mercenary, and the like. On this basis, the necessary permission to monitor communications is obtained from the prosecutor, which then constitutes a legal cover for spying of all kinds. So, in the end, it can turn out that all these people were spied on, but with the permission of the competent authorities, that is, that the BIA really worked "in accordance with the laws".
REACTIONS TO THE ACTIVITIES OF SECURITY AGENCIES
Allegations about the eavesdropping of students caused a lot of reactions in Europe, but, so far, there have been no radical steps towards Serbia because of it. The European Union has announced that it is aware of the allegations of the use of spyware, adding that any attempt to illegally access the data of citizens and political opponents is "unacceptable".
Members of the European Parliament from the Green group asked the European Commission to respond to these allegations and to freeze all payments to Serbia within the Growth Plan, as well as to condition Serbia's further progress in the EU accession process with responsibility in the area of the rule of law.
The MEP from Belgium, Saskia Brikmon, stated that she is worried because the country that is a candidate for EU membership uses spyware without any legal framework, while her colleague from Slovenia, Vladimir Prebilič, assessed that free elections are not possible if activists, students and the political opposition are targets of state surveillance. Austrian MEP Andreas Schider called on the EU to react because the new allegations of spying on political opponents in Serbia represent a "serious escalation".
As for Serbia, many politicians hastened to announce to the public that he or she was also a victim of wiretapping, but only the leader of the Democratic Party (DS), Srđan Milivojević, had a concrete proposal to use this case as a reason to dissolve the BIA.
Stories about the disbanding of the secret services, modeled on the East German Stasi or the former service of Saddam Hussein, have been mentioned periodically since the restoration of multi-partyism in Serbia, but apart from a mild and cosmetic evolution after October 5, 2000, nothing concrete has been done in this regard.
This time, Milivojević requested the dissolution of not only the BIA, but also other secret services due to the alleged violation of the Constitution and legal powers. The condition for that is the victory of the student list in the upcoming elections. So, we will have between 45 and 60 days to see if this idea will be implemented to the end this time or if everything will end again at another press conference in front of the BIA headquarters in Kraljice Ana bb, in Belgrade's Banjica.
The role of BIA in the political and public life of Serbia
Regardless of whether the BIA was allegedly conducting these activities in accordance with the law or in brutal violation of it, the question is why on earth would the BIA be doing it? An agency whose job description is to protect the security of the state could really spend its resources on more serious matters.
As a reminder, that agency went unnoticed by the establishment of a very serious criminal group by Veljko Belivuk, which brutally killed even people who were under police surveillance near Belgrade. Before that, a huge marijuana plantation had grown unnoticed in Stara Pazova. When the disaster occurred in Banjska, in which one Albanian policeman and three Serbs were killed, Milan Radoičić, the then vice-president of the Serbian List, took full responsibility for the case and stated that the authorities in Serbia knew nothing about it. If they knew about it, what was the idea behind it in the first place and why was the action such a fiasco? If not, how is it possible that the formation of such an armed formation escaped the attention of the security services? Radoičić added that he procured weapons in Tuzla and sent them to Kosovo through the territory of Belgrade.
And here it is possible to ask the same question - how did the BIA not register one such operation, that is, the transfer of weapons sufficient to equip a reinforced infantry platoon in full formation? And if so, why did everything end so sloppily and with great human and material sacrifices?
Why have we never found a Kosovo drone shot down in the vicinity of Raška? How was it so easy to pass over the accusations of wiretapping the President of Serbia, which were allegedly carried out by his close associates from the SNS, who were then working in the MUP? Instead of dealing with all these issues, BIA spends its resources on students?! Of course, it is a matter of political abuse of state institutions, but is it possible that the survival of this government, especially at the local level, depends on what some budding wannabe send the Marxist to the Viber group to the other members of the plenum? If it has come to that, then maybe we should listen to the DS leader's proposal.
UNS is following the case of alleged wiretapping of journalists from Dimitrovgrad
Dragana Bjelica, a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists from the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS), told "Vreme" that the association is following the case of Slavisa Milanov, a journalist from the FAR portal from Dimitrovgrad, who had spyware inserted into his phone. This allegedly happened while Milanov was in the police station.
"It is a case that has not been resolved to this day. The prosecution is looking, the police are not acting. I remember that the representatives of the prosecution looked with skepticism at the fact that a local journalist was injected with spyware. They said that it was expensive. I thought to myself: 'Is that possible?'. Since then, more cases have happened. It turned out to be possible," said Bjelica.
The representative of UNS said that it is easy to understand colleague Milanov when he says that it is not pleasant to live with the knowledge that someone is following you and knows everything about you, while you do not even know who is doing it or for what reason, but that after that there was also the case of breaking into the apartment of the KRIK journalist.
"Someone breaks into an apartment, stays in the area where female journalists live, monitors what's on your phone and nothing. We have that today," said Bjelica.
She added that the members of the Permanent Working Group, in an informal conversation, received advice from the representative of the prosecution to reset their phones to factory settings every few days if they suspect that something strange is happening to them.
