Veljko Belivuk, the head of a criminal group suspected of several brutal liquidations, at the hearing at the prosecutor's office two weeks ago, denied being a murderer, but spoke about his alleged relationship with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, and other people from the top of the Serbian Progressive Party. As he said, Vučić and his colleagues asked him for more favors - to control that chants against the president are not chanted at Partizan's stands, to intimidate those who organized protests against the government, to ensure peace at the Pride Parade, but also to influence taxi drivers to cancel protests against the "CarGo" transport application, says the transcript of Belivuk's hearing obtained by KRIK.
At the beginning of August, the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime is expected to file an indictment against Veljko Belivuk aka Velja Nevolja, the leader of the hooligan-criminal group "Principi" that worked within the Montenegrin kavak clan.
Belivuk is suspected of being behind five brutal murders, one torture and drug dealing, and photos of the decapitated and butchered bodies of his victims have been published by the authorities on several occasions. Belivuk's clan is considered one of the most brutal in the region.
It is also characteristic of this criminal group that they have had strong contacts in the state for years - above all in the police and politics, which KRIK and other media previously wrote about.
KRIK journalists have now obtained the transcript of Belivuk's hearing at the prosecutor's office on July 5, which can deepen this story. He first briefly explained that he is not a criminal but a "supporter leader" and that he is not responsible for murders, kidnappings and drug smuggling, but he did not want to answer the prosecutor's questions about this. On his own initiative, however, he started talking about relations with people from the government.
"I decided to tell everything about my relationship with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, the Minister of Police Aleksandar Vulin, Vučić's brother, friends, godfathers and all other politicians who asked us for favors, and now they pretend not to know each other and wash their hands of us," Belivuk told the prosecutor.
During the nearly half-hour hearing, he listed the various services he allegedly performed for the president and his people and listed the names of SNS members with whom he was seeing. He said that he maintained contact with President Vučić mostly through the hooligan Aleksandar Vidojević, better known as Aca Rošavi, who is a friend of the president's son, but also that he allegedly met Vučić several times in person.
He also threatened to reveal more details in the future "if certain people don't wise up."
Although it is difficult to judge what is true and what is not from what Belivuk told, some details match what was previously assumed - that his group had a role in suppressing the protests, as well as relations with people in power. In his statement, however, Belivuk did not mention all the people from the police and the ruling party that journalists had previously discovered were close to him.
KRIK called President Vučić for a comment, and his media advisor Suzana Vasiljević told us that he will not make statements on this while the investigation is ongoing. We also called the others mentioned by Belivuk, but none of them wanted to comment.
"The boss has a big problem"
Belivuk told the prosecutor that he has been a member of the Serbian Progressive Party since 2011.
He explained that his arrest in 2016, due to suspicions that he participated in a murder in the center of Belgrade, led to politicians losing control over the Partizan stand. He was later acquitted in this case under mysterious circumstances – some evidence was compromised, and the expert suddenly changed his testimony.
Belivuk said that the hooligan Aleksandar Vidojević, better known as Aca Rošavi, told him in 2017 that he would be his connection to the President of Serbia.
"Vidojević told me that the Chief, as we called Vučić, had a big problem at Partizan's stand which arose as a result of my going to custody in 2016. That Andrej, Aleksandrov's brother, has control over the fan group 'Alcatraz', but that they do not have the strength to present anything there, that he also controls part of the fans' forum called 'Kimijevci', but that they only spend money and do not contribute to anything, and that they don't really have any control. The idea was to create a new fan faction that would unite it all so that the situation would be like at Zvezda Stadium. (…) We did it.”
After some time, as he says, Belivuk lost confidence in Vidojević.
"We began to suspect Rošava that he is not conveying everything to the Chief exactly as it is, that is, that he is giving himself more credit for some solved tasks."
Belivuk claims that he then complained to Darko Glišić, the president's godfather and one of the key people of SNS, whom he says is his 'longtime friend'.
"He invited me to Ub at his place, since he is the president of the municipality there. Marko Miljković (Belivuk's right-hand man) and I went there, we had a constructive meeting where he explained to me how he heard from the Boss, how the Boss confirmed that Rošavi, Acko as they call him, is a direct connection, that I don't need to we meet directly (with Vučić) so as not to jeopardize the whole situation."
At the same meeting, he claims, he complained to Glišić about the problems he had with Dijana Hrkalović, then one of the key people in the police.
"Diana had something against us, I don't even know what, stripped (our) women down to the bare skin during every search. He said that they also have a big problem, that Dijana is a great enemy of the Vučić family and that they don't know how to solve it."
At one of the following meetings, he told the prosecutor, Glišić, at Belivuk's insistence, said that he would personally organize a meeting with Vučić.
"He gave me the contact of the BIA members that I need to speak with, and they will tell me when and where to meet."
The meeting with Vučić took place, as Belivuk claims, in a private apartment on Zvezdara. Allegedly, the president's security guard was waiting outside - while Vučić was talking alone with Belivuk and Miljković in the apartment.
"There were various topics and there were a couple of those meetings. Already at the first meeting, he told us that seeing each other would be minimized as much as possible, so that we would not endanger either him or ourselves due to the political situation."
"Services"
Belivuk claims that Vučić asked him for different things at those meetings.
One of the specific favors Belivuk describes in his defense is that he allegedly helped prevent one of the scheduled protests by taxi drivers who rebelled against the competing ride-hailing app "CarGo" from taking place.
"He asked me to influence the taxi drivers so that (the protest) does not take place, because 'CarGo' is a friendly company." I asked: 'How can the Ustashas, Croats in translation, be friends?', since it was in the newspaper that it was their company. He said that I don't talk nonsense when I don't know, that Prime Minister Ana Brnabić's brother participated in the development of that program and that we have to help Ana because she does a lot for the family and for the country itself, which we did, the strike was not even held. "
He listed several other favors that his group allegedly did for Vučić.
"We made it possible not to sing, not to chant for him, his family members, his friends, not to raise slogans, not to come (hooligans) to gay parades, to appear at (SNS) rallies in order to mass the meeting."
Belivuk says that they also used it to scare those protesting against Vučić.
"They used our names in the past when there were counter rallies - that Marko and I would do anything to them if they showed up and it definitely worked since many of those rallies were canceled and interrupted."
Vučić allegedly asked Belivuk to prevent the raising of an offensive banner against the daughter of the director of the football club "Crvena zvezda" Zvezdan Terzić, which the fans planned to do in the stands during the game.
"I said that there are four hours until the start of the game, that it is physically impossible for me to stop, to which I was told like out of the blue that the Boss is telling me that he knows that I can do it, the only question is whether I want to. In such a situation, you are not left with much choice. After about two hours, before the start of the match, our lawyer Dejan Lazarevic came with the same request, but he was invited by Zvezdan Terzic. We did it. After two days, Marko Miljković, I and Lazarević met with Terzić, where he thanked us unconditionally and asked how much the service cost. We said that it was done as a favor and that it could not cost anything for friends.”
There were also several things that, as Belivuk claims, he could not finish.
"The thing we couldn't agree on was related to Partizan, when the change of management was requested, to influence it."
They also did not agree, as he says, about him being in contact with Aleksandar Vulin, for whom he uttered a series of insults during the hearing.
"But in order not to delay, since it was important to the Boss, Marko Miljković and I agreed that he would have contact with him, that I would not fulfill anything that Vulin asked for, that I would be in direct contact with the Boss and through other intermediaries, and for Marko to be in a relationship with Vulin, which he was through his grandfather Svetozar Vujačić (Vulin's advisor in the Ministry of Internal Affairs)," Belivuk told the prosecution.
KRIK journalists tried to get comments from Glišić, Terzić and Vulin.
Terzić answered the phone, but after the journalist introduced herself and asked him a question, he hung up. Glišić and Vulin did not respond to phone calls.
Who Belivuk did not mention
Belivuk did not mention certain people who were previously known to have been close to him - such as the General Secretary of the Government Novak Nedić and the policeman Nenad Vučković Vuček.
Nedic, by all accounts, had contact with this group on several occasions. With Belivuk, his former boss Aleksandar Stanković aka Sale Mutavi, who was killed in 2016, and gendarme Vučković, Nedic practiced shooting at the state military shooting range in 2016, the Military Union of Serbia claimed. The investigation into this case was suspended after evidence mysteriously disappeared.
Apart from this, Vladimir Vuletić, the former vice-president of Partizan, also spoke about their connection for KRIK, who said that Nedic used Belivuk's team to put pressure on the management of this club. Nedić's father, Vojislav, a lawyer and member of SNS, defended Belivuk at the trial for murder in 2016.
Gendarme Vučković was also close to this group. He was often seen cheering together with Belivuk at matches, as evidenced by photos from the stands. He was the link between Belivuk's team and the then secretary of the MUP, Dijana Hrkalović.
Neither Nedic nor Vučković were included in the prosecution's investigation, nor were they heard in this case.
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