Serbian organized crime boss offers to testify on murders

N1

The head of an organized crime group whose members have been indicted for drug trafficking and a number of murders has offered to testify about three unsolved cases, N1 has learned unofficially.

Organized crime boss Veljko Belivuk offered to reveal what he knows about the assassination of Kosovo Serb opposition leader Oliver Ivanovic and the death of lawyer Vladimir Cvijan who was close to Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) as well as the tearing down of buildings in the Savamala neighborhood, the site of the Belgrade Waterfront project. Ivanovic was gunned down in front of his party offices in Kosovska Mitrovica early in 2018 and Cvijan was reported to have drowned but his death was kept secret for months.

Belivuk and his lieutenant Marko Miljkovic were supposed to appear in court for a preliminary hearing with other members of their crime clan on Tuesday but the hearing was postponed.

Belivuk’s lawyer Dejan Lazarevic told N1 that the defense team filed a motion to exempt the court president, the head of the panel of judges and the chief prosecutor trying the case.

The Belivuk group have been indicted for five murders, kidnappings, rape, drug trafficking and illegal arms possession. They were arrested in February 2021 and the indictment was filed in August. The start of the court case was postponed for months after one of the judges went on sick leave. The case was handed to a different judge.