Vucic releases more violent pictures, video on live TV

Vucic’s interview in the prime-time slot included security camera video of a January 30, 2017 murder in central Belgrade. The video showed the shooting of Vlastimir Milosevic but not the face of the person who shot him. This is the second time in the space of a week that a state official showed violent images on the station which has national coverage. Last Sunday, Internal Affairs Minister Aleksandar Vulin showed photographs of mutilated bodies which he said were downloaded from the cell phones of members of Veljko Belivuk’s organized crime group. A transcript of Belivuk’s interrogation by prosecutors was released a few days later in which he claimed to have been in personal contact with Vucic and his associates who demanded favors which a number of officials denied. Some reports said that the release of the photographs was an attempt to ward off Belivuk’s accusations.
Commenting the video, Vucic said that two crime clans are at war. “We are talking about a conflict between two clans which this young man had nothing to do with. He was killed for no reason. We are talking about something imported from Montenegro. A conflict between the Skaljarski and Kavacki clans,” Vucic said adding that Belivuk’s group was involved.

Vucic said that Milosevic was killed because he stopped Belivuk and his associate Marko Miljkovic from taking over some of the many floating bars and restaurants in Belgrade. Belivuk was freed of charges along with two others for involvement in the murder after evidence was allegedly tampered with and witnesses changed their testimony. Vucic said that a police officer involved in the arrests “went through hell” because someone did on the street and in the police did not like him.

Vucic also showed a photograph of what he said was “sliced human flesh”. “What you see is sliced human flesh. The head has been blurred so that you can’t see who this is. We did this to show you the monsters we had to deal with. And that was not all. They would throw this into a meat grinder,” Vucic said.

The president said that the indictment against Belivuk will be “a masterpiece”. He added that everyone in Serbia will be safe from now on. He said that he has no doubt that the investigation will be expanded to include any civil servant connected to or protecting criminals.

According to Vucic, informal power centers have been formed in the Criminal Police Department. “A parallel security structure made of reliable and precisely selected people whose main job is not to fight crime but to form an intelligence network to gather information about the Serbian President and his family,” he said quoting a document signed on Saturday by the head of the Special Service for Investigative Methods Toma Radovanovic.

Vucic said that the number of mob killings in Serbia had dropped steadily over the past few years and that crime groups and some of the police began keeping him, his brother and older son under surveillance. “My message to them is that I won’t wise up,” he said adding that there have been no mob killings this year.