Although Belivuk has been trying to admit the demolition in Savamala for two years, senior public prosecutor Nenad Stefanović refuses to listen to him because “the MUP did not include him in the criminal report”. He does not listen to Vučić either, although the president recently stated that he proudly admits that he was the mastermind, because in this country it seems that it is forbidden to confess to a crime if the MUP did not catch you first
Even eight years was not enough for the “competent authorities” (a set of institutions that only SNS still claims to exist) to establish who is in the city center covered by numerous cameras, remove all vehicles and all obstacles to clear the way for the excavators tasked with razing Savamala , as well as who hired 30 hitmen with the task of instilling the necessary amount of fear into potential witnesses in time so that they never speak. It was obviously too risky for both the police and the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade to look at the footage and see who was on it, whose company owned the heavy machinery, or to check who the owners of the mobile phones that were located in Herzegovina during the demolition that night were. And it is even more risky to read the report of the then protector of citizens, Saša Janković, in which it was said that it was an “organized violation of the rights of citizens” carried out in an action “that included several different structures: state and non-state and several vertical levels”.
The only man in this country who claims to have the guts to do what “no one but him was allowed to do” failed in this case – he didn’t have time to read the report because he was reading more important things, such as the case of the murder of Jelena Marjanović. Nevertheless, after a month of protests (it was a happy time when citizens were still protesting the destruction of Belgrade as it was centuries before the progressives), he made one of his firm and statesmanlike promises: “You will find out everything about Savamala, regardless of whether it may or may not be harmful to us, but right now I am more concerned about finding the killer of Jelena Marjanović than that.”
After Savamala, the only two institutions that were looking for the culprit – the Citizens’ Protector and the Commissioner for Information – were abolished essentially and not formally, and then all the others in a chain. That is why we reached the Mala Krsna affair and the abolition of the last democratic right – the right to vote
In the meantime, three progressive favorites (Stefanović, Vulin and Gašić) were replaced as Minister of Police, and three prominent lawyers from the party (Selaković, Kuburović and Maja Popović) were also replaced as Minister of Justice, and the result remained miserable in both cases – it turned out that institutions work equally badly when Vučić cares about a subject and when he considers it absolutely irrelevant. At the same time, in the second case, there were greater chances for an outcome, bearing in mind that the leader of the criminal group, Veljko Belivuk, since 2022 has been persistently trying to testify that he was engaged by the state in the work of bullying, tying up and unlawfully depriving all citizens of their freedom who found themselves in Herzegovina on the night when it was being razed, but acting prosecutor Saša Ivanić firmly put his hands over his ears and ran away in the opposite direction.
In the absence of an official who would take a statement from him, Belivuk described in detail before the Special Court in Belgrade the “services” he did for the state, such as preventing rallies (he’s not lying, the cameras recorded it), breaking up demonstrations (and for that you can find a few recordings), but also the demolition in Hercegovačka street, which he says he carried out together with Zvonko Veselinović. And then he repeated it several times in vain. The senior public prosecutor in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović, stated that he can repeat this as much as he wants, but that he will not give that statement officially because “Veljko Belivuk was never included in the criminal report of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) for the Savamal case, and that part of his statement before the Special Department for Organized Crime of the High Court in Belgrade cannot even be treated as a confession”.
Could we conclude from that that the killer of Jelena Marjanović would have gone through the same thing if he had decided to confess to the crime, in case it was someone whom the MUP did not discover and include in a criminal report, even if he offered a weapon with all the forensic evidence as evidence? evidence? Difficult, but possible, bearing in mind that in 25 years, our judiciary failed to pass a conviction for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, even though Vučić promised to resign if that crime was not solved, and that our police managed to beat to death a possible helper or witness in the case the murder of two-year-old Danka Ilić, without extracting any relevant knowledge from it.
But even the so incompetent police and judiciary could not fail to find the culprits for Savamala, bearing in mind all the existing evidence, and last year’s confession of Aleksandar Vučić: “I am proud to announce – I was the man who made the decision to demolish the illegal udjerices.” However, he was not questioned either, I guess according to the same principle – the MUP did not include him in the criminal report, just as Siniša Malog’s ex-wife was not questioned seven years ago, who told KRIK that Mali boasted to her about how he had organized the action of “banging” and “clearing”. The then Minister of Police Nebojša Stefanović and Police Director Vladimir Rebić were not heard either, although former Supreme Court judge Zoran Ivošević gave arguments for this by saying: “It is necessary to determine who ordered the police not to go to the scene and protect the safety of citizens.” Siniša Mali could not order that, because the police are managed by the director and the minister of the interior.”
Of course, it was estimated that the testimony of the Director of City Cleanliness was not needed, even though his workers cleaned up the evidence before the investigation, as well as the Director of EPS, even though this company turned the electricity on and off in the neighborhood in agreement with the needs of the demolition workers and the police, who did not go out for the investigation. . Subliming who could order, coordinate and cover up all this, Saša Jankoviće said at the pre-election meeting in Savamala: “There were a lot of phantoms that night, but they were all there in the name of one man – you, Aleksandar Vučić.” None of your henchmen dared to even think that, out of their own interests, they spit on the citizens, and keep them blind, deaf and dumb. You are a complete phantom from Savamala. This is your responsibility, idea, interests.”
Although lawyers called the whole case a “two-hour suspension of the rule of law”, it turned out to be much more than that
At that moment, Vučić was still not ready to admit what he must now – I am and what you can do to me, but he said: “You asked for a commission, you will get a commission, why is someone afraid of any truth, I am not afraid of anything, not even Savamala , no helicopters, no guardsmen.” And then he still got a little scared and declared that he wasn’t really thinking of Savamala, but of the death of the guardsman and some other investigations. To that, Gordana Čomić answered him: “Will the investigations into the assassination of Zoran Đinđić, Ivan Stambolić and Slavko Ćuruvija be simultaneous with Savamala and the helicopter or did you order them instead?” And then she ignored what she asked and that the answer was never he didn’t arrive, instead she sat down in his chair intended for the Minister of Human and Minority Rights and forgot that she had ever been a Savamala.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that the prosecutor’s office forgot what his job was, and declared that he could not work because the police did not provide him with evidence. And then, at the request of the then Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, Rodoljub Šabić, to provide the reference numbers of the documents on which Sanja Đurić, acting prosecutor in the Savamal case, informed the public prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office, the MUP and the National Assembly due to the refusal of the police to act on the requests and emergency services, decided not to respond but to pay a fine of 800,000 dinars. The Republic’s Public Prosecutor’s Office went a step further and filed a criminal complaint against Šabić because in the same request he also requested the prosecutor’s biography, which is not really a crime if the prosecutor for Savamala is not being treated as a protected witness.
Although lawyers called the whole case a “two-hour suspension of the rule of law”, it turned out to be much more than that.
“From the moment of the phantom night demolition in Savamala, I was convinced that this was a red line that should never have been crossed in a civilized society.” Later events only confirmed this belief. That is why the leveling of Hercegovačka Street could not represent an isolated episode, but, unfortunately, had to be experienced as an announcement of the way in which the holders of political power will continue to treat legality and the division of power in the future. All subsequent affairs and the complete devastation of institutions were conceived and announced that night,” says Miodrag Majić, judge of the Court of Appeal.
And there is no doubt that it is. After Savamala, the only two institutions that were looking for the culprit – the Citizens’ Protector and the Commissioner for Information – were abolished essentially and not formally, and then all the others in a chain. That is why we reached the Mala Krsna affair and the abolition of the last democratic right – the right to vote.
