"Vele Zvonko and Andrej almost celebrated a billion," Ljubo Milović, a former policeman, now on the run, wrote in a Sky correspondence to Nikšić's Miloš Božović in March 2021.
photo: printscreen...and an example of communication on the Sky app
This almost colloquial sentence exchanged between two comrades from the Montenegrin underground will cause, as William Faulkner would say, real "noise and fury" in the Vučić family. Unlike Faulkner's heroes, the respectable, aristocratic Compson family, the Vučićs do not live in the imaginary area of Joknapatof, nor are they faced with financial ruin. On the contrary, as far as is known, not only because of this alleged billion, Andrei and Alexander are doing well, at least in the financial sense. However, they were greatly angered by the text published in the Podgorica "Vijesti".
And how could it not, because during the court proceedings, with an insight into the Sky ECC communication between Milović and Božović, among other things, it is claimed that Veselinović is "in cahoots with Andrej" and that "Zvonko played through Andrej to get rid of Nevolja and Marko, and for the one hanging with Žvalj's little son, Rosavo, to come".
Nikšićanin replies: "They are free. I follow him a bit, his movements, just for fun. I have a lot of recordings and pictures from the forest by helicopter, he comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina to hunt from a helicopter with Lukač (Dragan Lukač, former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Srpska - ed.) and so on". A little later he adds: "Who knows when it will work".
Correspondence in which Božović writes: "My boys fought with Nevolja and the police for him (Zvonko Veselinović - ed. author.) and Andrej. Then, I told you in July."
On the same night, the man from Nikšić relayed the knowledge "how (Andrej Vučić and Dragan Lukač - ed.) went hunting together by helicopter". Yes, yes, he and Lukač killed 7 chamois in one day 3-4 months ago. Everything is recorded, everything is recorded and monitored", Božović explained to the escaped policeman, and then added that "they flew without any permits".
PUBLIC PERSONALITY BEFORE THE MONTENEGRO COURT
A lawsuit will follow before the Basic Court in Podgorica. In addition to moral satisfaction and 5.000 euros, Andrej Vučić requested that the text published on January 23, 2024 under the title "Zvonko and Andrej celebrated a billion..." be removed from the "Vijesti" portal, as well as that the editor-in-chief publish the verdict at his own expense.
"The lawsuit claimed that the publisher of 'Vijesti', editor-in-chief Mihailo Jovović and authors Danilo Mihajlović and Jelena Jovanović, by publishing the text 'Zvonko and Andrej celebrated a billion...' hurt the honor, reputation and dignity of Andrej Vučić", lawyer Siniša Gazivoda, legal representative of "Vijesti", explained to "Vreme". "The defendant claims that a series of false information was allegedly presented with which, again allegedly, they tried to bring Andrej Vučić into contact with criminal circles in Serbia and Montenegro, and to portray him as a criminal. The lawsuit refers to quotes from the text, and then in relation to those quotes, the wording is repeated that the defendants allegedly unequivocally made a gross attack on the personal rights of Andrej Vučić, and it is claimed that they had the intention of destroying his reputation, honor and dignity."
Andrej Vučić, who was so overcome by noise and anger that it was not difficult for him to come to Podgorica in person, defended himself by first trying to convince judge Jelena Anđelić that Zvonka knew Malten by sight.
"I know Zvonko Veselinović, but I am not close to him, he is just an acquaintance of mine. I met him three or four times at some public gatherings, but we have no points of contact," said Vučić at the hearing.
Commenting on the messages from the text in which Božović says that Andrej Vučić and Veselinović together with the then Minister of Police of the Republika Srpska Dragan Lukač went hunting in a helicopter, Vučić said that he had never seen or heard of Lukač in his life.
"I'm not a hunter, I hate hunting and I hate anyone who kills animals. I've never ridden a helicopter in my life," he said at the hearing.
Andrej Vučić, while noting that, after the publication of the controversial text, "he asked his godfather, the doctor, to prescribe him medication to calm him down and for the heart", answering the judge's question, he said that he is a member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and a member of the Executive Board of that party, which is only the third most important body in the party according to the hierarchy, and that this body has many members.
"I don't see myself as a public figure, but as a target to harm my brother," Vučić said, pointing out that the goal of the text published in "Vijesti" was solely "to dehumanize and criminalize my brother and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić."
"In the proceedings, we insisted on several circumstances. First, that Andrej Vučić is a public figure and that it was therefore in the public interest to publish this correspondence. Second, that all parts of the text on which the lawsuit is based are the correspondence between Milović and Božović, and not allegations, assertions or conclusions of journalists. Third, that Andrej Vučić could sue Milović and Božović if he believes that their allegations are untrue, and that his choice to sue the media, editor and journalists instead of them to the conclusion that the intention of the lawsuit is actually to dissuade the defendants from writing about Andrej Vučić in the future", says lawyer Gazivoda.
With the first-instance verdict, the Basic Court in Podgorica, as is known, rejected the lawsuit of Andrej Vučić.
"The court accepted the defendant's argument that Andrej Vučić is a public figure and therefore deserves a lower degree of privacy protection due to the existence of a public interest in writing about such a topic. Then, during the trial, Sky communications were inspected and it was established that 'Vijesti' had credibly reported all the allegations of Milović and Božović, i.e. that the correspondence in the original is identical to what was quoted. The court also applied the standards of the Court in Strasbourg in the field of freedom of expression and from all of this drew the conclusion that the lawsuit is unfounded," says lawyer Siniša Gazivoda.
The legal representative of "Vijesti" also mentions an interesting detail.
"In our response to the appeal, we pointed out that more media were present at the trial where Andrej Vučić was heard, which was noted in the minutes," says Gazivoda. "Portals that are marked as close to Aleksandar Vučić reacted violently with almost identical texts to the first-instance verdict, and the president of SNS Miloš Vučević also had a reaction on the social network X regarding the verdict. Our thesis is that such things do not usually happen when someone who is not a public figure loses a case", Gazivoda notes.
For Andrej's older brother Aleksandar Vučić, this verdict was expected. "I don't even know why he needed to sue them, he, like a normal person, thinks that when someone writes that he killed, that he was involved in drug dealing, that someone will get to the bottom of the matter, just pay attention," Vučić told Serbian media reporters in Shanghai. "They didn't get into the merits of the matter, they don't say that he is wrong, but they say: you have to suffer because you are a public figure."
BELGRADE GUARDIANS APPLICATION
And so this Sky episode, at least for now, has ended, but the story about the once protected communication, apparently, has not even started in Serbia, if we exclude the trial of Veljko Belivuk's criminal gang and KRIK's story about Kokeza and Nemanja Vidić. The article in "Vijesti" and the trial on the lawsuit of Andrej Vučić opens a new question that is being heard more and more often, and it refers precisely to the use and presence of Sky communication and the obvious difference between Montenegro and Serbia.
Belgrade lawyer Ivan Ninić points out that in Serbia the use of Sky communication is strictly controlled and surgically limited exclusively to the level of perpetrators on the ground, while in Montenegro it has become a tool for dismantling the criminalized state apparatus. He believes that the reasons for this selective application are of a legal-political nature, because in Serbia Aleksandar Vučić still controls the security sector and decides what will be the subject of prosecutorial proceedings.
"The indictment against the Belivuk clan was brought at the moment when that group became too much of a burden and a security threat for the government itself," says Ninic. However, the investigation was deliberately stopped at the level of the immediate perpetrators of the brutal murders. The opening of the complete Sky Correspondence in Serbia, following the example of Montenegro, would locate the essential centers of power - high-ranking officials of the MUP, the Security and Information Agency (BIA), their collaborative network, but also the political decision-makers themselves, who have provided that group with logistics, police badges and institutional immunity for years. The police and the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime in Belgrade dose the Sky correspondence "by the spoonful." It is used on a minimal sample and only where the state wants to demonstrate the fight against crime, while the remaining gigabytes of data that would compromise people from the very top of the regime and their tycoons are deliberately kept in the drawers," Ninic explains.
What kind of consequences the opening of the Sky archive would cause is perhaps best illustrated by the example of Montenegro.
Jelena Jovanović, "Vijesti" journalist, author of the contentious text for which Andrej Vučić filed a lawsuit, has been publishing parts of once locked communications for years. She reminds that the first correspondence from the Sky application was published by her colleague Olivera Lakić on the Libertas portal, at the beginning of April 2022.
"After that, the prosecution of several very important cases followed, precisely those that the then Special State Prosecutor's Office, while claiming to the public that it did not know who "Cardinal", "Komita", "Junior" and other persons from Sky Communications, kept in a drawer and tried to protect in every way", points out Jelena Jovanović. The "Vijesti" journalist recalls that at her last media conference, the former chief special prosecutor, today's accused Milivoje Katnić, replied that he did not know who those persons were and that it had not been determined who "Kardinal", "Komita" and "Junior" were, but that he knew who was providing information to Jelena Jovanović.
However, soon after that, the chief special prosecutor was retired, and not long after, the current Special State Prosecutor's Office is prosecuting Milivoj Katnić for protecting certain "heroes" from Skye.
"Sky communication exposed and confirmed everything that individuals have been warning about for years - that institutions and the state were seriously abused in Montenegro in order to protect the mafia," explains Jelena Jovanović. She points out that the transcripts from Skye revealed the extent of the connections between the mafia and individuals in the system.
"However, considering the positions held by the individuals who were later prosecuted, as well as the fact that in Montenegro we also have a police drug cartel, in which 12 of the 21 accused were former or former police officers, one of the municipal presidents clearly states that in Montenegro for years, and if we go back further into the past, it can be said for decades, before Skaj, the mafia was in a tight embrace with parts of the system and the authorities", says the "Vijesti" journalist who has lived for years with police security.
CODE NAME - "OSCAR"
The Montenegrin judiciary, as attorney Gaziovod points out, treats Sky communication as evidence in criminal cases, although this is still something that the defense in those cases disputes and announces further review of that legal position before mechanisms for the protection of human rights.
"At this moment, there are legally binding judgments in which Sky communication was used as evidence", emphasizes the legal representative of "Vijesti", adding that during the proceedings on the lawsuit of Andrej Vučić, he insisted that if the prosecution based the indictments on allegations from Sky communication, and the court verdicts, then journalists also have the right to use those communications for texts, of course, with the fulfillment of other legal and ethical rules that regulate the field of media.
Ivan Ninić warns that there is no "leaking" of data from Sky material in Serbia, because an absolute monopoly over that information has been established. This lawyer sees the difference with Montenegro in the structure of the security sector and the firm control of the media scene. If anything leaked, Vučić would know who made it public and for what purpose, and he would take revenge on people from the state apparatus in a cruel way.
"In Montenegro, after the change of the thirty-year-old government, there were tectonic disturbances and pluralism within the security sector, where different factions had an interest in providing materials to investigative media. In Serbia, the security apparatus is monolithic, strictly centralized and under the direct control of one center of political power," Ninic states.
He warns that, if, for example, only pro-regime tabloids were to receive the Sky correspondence, they would run the risk of "mistakenly" highlighting the role of state officials who are mentioned under code names, such as "Oscar" and other high-ranking officials.
According to Ninić, independent investigative journalists in Serbia only get access to parts of the correspondence through court files, when the indictment has already been filed, and every systemic "leak" is hermetically sealed.
"The keys to the 'Sky Safe' in Serbia are held by a narrow group within the executive branch coordinated through the top of the security services and the politically instructed leadership of the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK). The primary guardian of the deciphered secret is the political top of the state, President Aleksandar Vučić himself. For him, Sky communication is nuclear waste that, if it explodes in public, can completely collapse the narrative about the stability of the government and the apparent cohesion in the ranks of the largest political party in Belgrade," says lawyer Ninić.
According to him, the prosecution is legally and formally guarding this material.
"Instead of acting on their official duty and forming hundreds of cases based on deciphered messages from the French and Belgian authorities, they treat the material as a state secret of the highest degree. Within the security services, special, isolated teams have been formed that have access to this data. Their task is not to prosecute crime, but to perform security filtration, i.e. to determine who all of 'our people' are mentioned in the correspondence and to hide these materials from the eyes of acting judges and defense lawyers", concludes Ivan Ninic.
UNLOCKED IN MONTENEGRO, LOCKED IN SERBIA
If this is really the situation in Serbia regarding Sky communication, the key question is why Andrej Vučić went all the way to Podgorica when the same documentation that his own brother swallowed is already in Belgrade under lock and key.
Perhaps the best and closest answers to the truth are the facts presented by "Vijesti" journalist Jelena Jovanović, who, at least once a week, has been introducing the Montenegrin public to the various contents and secrets of Sky communication for all these years.
"We did not manage to read and check even five percent of the material available to us when it comes to communications with the Sky application and other once protected applications," says Jelena Jovanović.
And therefore, those who claim that the Vučić family is less of a problem with those five percent of the already published correspondence in "Vijesti" are right, but that "Oscara" feels a slight shudder at the mere thought of what has not been published and what could yet appear in this communication and especially what could follow, similar to in Montenegro.
Finally, it is worth remembering the Kompson family from the beginning of the text. Faulkner's Compsons do not perish in one dramatic event - they disintegrate slowly, living on memories of the past, while the present unstoppably destroys them.
Any similarity with Serbia is….
Mini interview: Jelena Jovanovic
Sky exposed abuse of institutions
Justice-seekers want to read the Sky App correspondence because it lays bare what individuals have been warning about for years that institutions and the state were seriously abused in Montenegro in order to protect the mafia
......
I cannot remember exactly when I published the first messages from Sky communication, but I can confirm that during 2021 I published nicknames from Sky several times and linked them to officers of the Police Directorate who were later prosecuted.
During 2021 and 2022, at all media conferences of the then Special State Prosecutor's Office, I asked questions about certain nicknames from Sky, as well as about who had lunch with Belivuk in Grahovo.
When it comes to Montenegro and the first published correspondence from the Sky application, they were published by a colleague on the Libertas portal, as far as I remember, at the beginning of April 2022. This was followed by the prosecution of several very important cases, precisely those that the then Special State Prosecutor's Office - while claiming to the public that it did not know who the people from Sky Communications were - kept in a drawer and tried to protect in every way.
The public always reacts to the publication of correspondence from Sky. I can't say that the reactions are divided, because most of the public is, first of all, deeply disturbed by what they read. We are talking about various abominations, diseases of society and monstrous murders, which, judging by these communications, were almost a routine matter for individuals. Nevertheless, people eager for justice want to read it because it exposes everything that individuals have been warning about for years - that institutions and the state were seriously abused in Montenegro in order to protect the mafia.
Correspondence from Sky confirmed that. They also confirmed that dirty policemen and dirty secret agents, apart from protecting the mafia, also participated in inciting religious and national hatred, in election processes, as well as in organizing protests after the elections on August 30, 2020. In other words, they were doing exactly what the institutions had to prevent. However, it is obvious that at that time it suited someone to create a parallel demi-world in Montenegro - a structure that will ask something, influence processes and dictate trends instead of being stopped and prosecuted.
The smallest part of the public, mainly those who were affected by the published correspondence and people close to them, resented it, both the first time those correspondences were published, and still today. They are trying in every possible way to discredit me and other authors of the texts by connecting us with the opposing clan, the prosecutor's office or who knows who else. Of course, just as they didn't succeed in intimidation, they also didn't succeed in years of lynching attempts on certain platforms, spins and various mean things they market. They will never. As long as I want to do this work, I will do it in the same way - exclusively in the public interest, professionally, responsibly and without agreeing to pressure, threats and attempts to discredit.
"Vijesti" and I have never protected anyone. Neither did my colleague Danilo and I pretend that we didn't see something or that we couldn't decipher something - and mostly the two of us work on those texts - because both the material and the method of its processing are very specific. It is not a mere reading of correspondence. It is a complex job that sometimes lasts for days, and sometimes involves 15 hours of work on connecting everything that is written in those communications, with facts, names, events...
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