Serbian police identified two powerful representatives of the state who helped drug lord Darko Šarić - former police minister Nebojša Stefanović and BIA chief Marko Parezanović - but the prosecutor for organized crime did not prosecute them, reveals a police document from the Šarić case.
According to the investigation, Stefanović assigned two of his associates from the police to Sarić to help the clan, but he also personally delivered confidential information to this group. From Šarić's group, he received a watch worth 17.000 euros, the messages exchanged between the criminals reveal. Parezanović was allegedly a conduit for criminals to a powerful official known as Oskar, but he denies for KRIK that he did any favors for the Šarić clan. Apart from them, Šarić was helped by a strongman whom the criminals called Nikola P, and whom neither the police nor the prosecution identified, reports KRIK.
"When you get fired up - write and I'll give you Atos to explain everything to you one by one," Duško Šarić sent a message in mid-June 2020 to his brother Darko Šarić, who was then in the custody of the Special Court for Organized Crime. He wanted to inform his brother of the plan to pressure the judges who were deciding his fate. Duško handed over the phone to a policeman who was nicknamed Atos, and who worked for the clan.
"We were... at a meeting with the president of the appeal (appellate court). We explained everything to him and the man understood," the corrupt policeman informed Sarić.
At that time, Šarić was waiting to see what would happen with his appeal against the verdict of the High Court, which sentenced him to 15 years in prison for smuggling almost six tons of cocaine. Everything depended on the panel of the Court of Appeal led by Judge Milimir Lukić. It could have confirmed the verdict, reduced Sarić's sentence, and even released him.
Members of Šarić's clan, as Sky messages show, therefore gathered a number of influential people who were tasked with coming up with a plan to pressure Judge Lukić. The criminals called these powerful people who helped them, among whom there were important officials, coded nicknames.
The first idea was to try to exert pressure on Judge Lukić through the President of the Appellate Court, Duško Milenkovic.
A person from the top of the police, who was called Edo, met with the president of the court Milenkovic to urge for Šarić. An influential agent of the Security Information Agency - BIA, nicknamed Markus, organized a meeting at the headquarters of the intelligence agency to which he invited Sarić's associates and Milenkovic. The man, who was called Dolar and Nikola P, was particularly rude, and who "tried to force the president of the court to intervene with his sole", according to the messages.
All this, however, was in vain. The president of the court told them that he could not influence Judge Lukić because he was "difficult for any type of pressure, except for institutional pressure," a policeman who worked for the clan recounted to Darko Šarić.
Milenkovic allegedly explained to them that their problem could be solved by "only one man" – an all-powerful official whom they called Oskar. After that, Šarić's group set about finding a solution for Oskar.
"I think Oskar wants to be the one to solve it in the end," explained the policeman to Sarić, using his brother Duško's phone.
At the end of this drama, the Supreme Court expelled Judge Lukić from the panel that decided on Šarić's verdict.
"Imagine a surgeon who before the operation is thoroughly familiar with the scanner image, sees the depth of the health problem, and then is replaced by a new surgeon who is not familiar with that data and who performs the operation - truly absurd," Judge Lukić commented for KRIK.
After that, Sarić's sentence was reduced by one year, and he was released from custody.
These actions are now known because the French police were able to decipher the messages exchanged through the special application for secure communications Sky, which was used by criminal groups around the world. She delivered the messages concerning Šarić's group - including those related to officials who served the drug cartel - to the Serbian prosecutor's office.
Organized crime prosecutor Mladen Nenadić, however, did almost nothing to untangle the network of corruption woven by the Šarić clan.
It also seems that at each subsequent level, from the police to the prosecutor's office, the work on this case was increasingly censored.
Thus, as KRIK reveals, the police identified two officials hiding behind the nicknames Edo and Markus. The former police minister Nebojša Stefanović and one of the leaders of the BIA, Marko Parezanović, are in question. This is stated in the criminal report that the police submitted on April 15, 2022 to the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime.
This report was filed by the police against Šarić's group, not against Stefanović and Parezanović, but in it they clearly state that they are hiding behind the mentioned nicknames and that they did services for the criminal clan.
In the report, the police did not reveal who Nikola P and Oskar are
The prosecution, which received this material from the police, did not initiate an investigation against Stefanović and Parezanović. In the indictment against Šarić's group, the prosecution does not even mention them. To KRIK's questions about this case, the prosecutor's office did not give answers, but only announced that "all international institutions and the public were informed about the results of the completed cases."
In the end, the case broke down on the three lowest in this chain of corruption and command responsibility - Stefanović's associates - police chief Danilo Stojanović and his deputy Milutin Radovanović, who were accused of helping the Šarić clan. Apart from them, SBPOK inspector Duško Mirković was also accused.
Stefanović did not answer the calls and messages of KRIK journalists, and the president of the appeal, Milenkovic, hung up the phone after we introduced ourselves. He did not even answer the questions sent to him through the court.
Parezanović, unlike them, sent written answers to KRIK journalists in which he claimed that he did not own Sky phone or had contacts with Šarić's group.
"I never met or spoke with Darko or Duško Šarić, nor did I have any connection with the Šarić clan," Parezanović points out, but says that he was in contact "of a professional nature with senior managers of this ministry (MUP) in the status of authorized officials .”
He points out that he informed his former director at BIA Bratislava Gašić about these contacts.
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