'Jovanjica' affair: Why new probe in Serbia's largest drug case ever?

Vulin didn't specify what that new probe would be about. But he said he was sure about one thing related the largest drug factory discovered in Europe, as described in the indictment.

"We don't know many things about Jovanjica; we will find out through an investigation, that's up to the prosecutor's office, the police and courts. We will find out all that, but for now, we know only one thing - Andrej Vucic has nothing to do with Jovanjica. Andrej Vucic certainly has nothing to do with Jovanjica," Vulin said.

He added the police would pay special attention to the testimony of Predrag Koluvija, plant owner and the main suspect in producing over four tonnes of marijuana.

Koluvija told the court that the head of the Belgrade Police's anti-drug department Slobodan Milenkovic, Dusan Mitic of the department's operations and prosecutor Sasa Drecun, tried to persuade him to accuse Vucic's brother "of everything."

Sofia Mandic, a lawyer, said it was unusual for the top authorities and the pro-government media to pay more attention to Koluvija's words than those by the police.

"People and the media should know that an accused in criminal proceedings can lie, and bear no consequences.

"Unlike witnesses, experts and other participants in the procedure who are obliged to tell the truth, the defendant has the right to lie," she added.

In the meantime, Vucic said the two police officers would take a polygraph for the third time. Miroslav Aleksic, an opposition politician, described that as an unacceptable pressure on inspectors who fought against drug dealers and took a lie detector twice in January 2020, amid the investigation into the marijuana and skunk factory. Both times they were proved to have told the truth.

"They are preparing questions for the policemen who arrested Koluvija and discovered Jovanjica, to make them fail the third polygraphic test! Either they take or refuse the test, orders for their removal have already been written waiting to be handed over! The main goal is to replace them," Aleksic posted on his Twitter account.

Speaking about the fight against the mafia, which Vucic recently announced, Coluvia's defence attorney Vladimir Djukanovic, a member of the main board of Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), and the head of the Parliament Justice Committee, said that some police officers were linked to criminals.

To prove that claim, he mentioned the cars with lights on. "We often read how police lights were confiscated from someone who doesn't have anything to do with the state. Who can use them? How? And they still drive cars with the lights? That means that someone gives it to them. You wonder where we live," Djukanovic said.

However, he forgot to mention that according to the indictment, during the arrest, his client Predrag Koluvija drove a car with lights for which he did not have a license.
Djukanovic is also a defence counsel for Milan Kendija, one of the three police officers arrested on suspicion of being part of Coluvia's protection