Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, commenting on yesterday's arrest of 11 people, including former construction ministers Tomislav Momirović and Goran Vesić, in connection with the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad Railway Station, said that he found it strange "how you can arrest three signatories from one piece of paper, but not arrest the fourth, who is the main signatory, or even ask him anything."
"Is it possible that he is protected because he is a friend of the supreme blockader or someone's lover," he asked, as reported by N1.
He added that the Prosecutor's Office (for organized crime) "emboldened itself to arrest and detain Vesić and Momirović for no reason and request detention, at least I saw their decisions, I assume that these others are similar," and that he finds this scandalous.
"You arrested three people on paper, and you didn't even touch the fourth one, who is the main one for signing, based on whose signature everyone else signed it. Just explain that to me, if possible. Or the fact that you're drinking with him in the pub absolves him, exculpates him from any responsibility. There must be some strange things going on," Vučić assessed in his address after an emergency session of the Serbian National Security Council.
He added that he would keep Vesić and Momirović in custody nine months after the arrests began.
"They didn't flee in those nine months, they didn't influence witnesses in those nine months. They won't flee. There is a fourth fabricated reason in our law, and that is disturbing the public. The public wasn't disturbed for nine months, so now they will be disturbed," Vučić said.
He threatened that "the time of accountability is coming, both for the coup attempts on March 15 and for the coup attempts in the meantime, and for everything else."
He also said that until now, foreigners have mostly determined who will go behind bars.
"Even he, when he called on certain state bodies to do their job, said: 'you have to do it, everything has been agreed upon with the Europeans. We have more witnesses, and there will be more criminal charges written accordingly. So they will have to tell you which Europeans asked for certain people to be arrested. Because I thought that this was done based on the law and the constitution, and not that it was sent to some embassies for approval. That's why you have this whole story about how some elections are needed, not because they think they will win the elections, they know they won't, they won't win anywhere, but because an additional crisis is needed to say that someone stole something somewhere," he said.
Without specifying who he was addressing, he said that "they" had forgotten that he was not Milosevic.
"For God knows why, Milosevic was more charming, smarter, and everything else. I am a little more cautious. And a little more thorough in certain things. And I won't say braver, but I am not afraid of them at all. Neither of them, nor of their foreign bosses. So, the fact that I am silent and don't answer everything is not because I don't know something, but because I don't want to. And because I want to protect this country of ours from their irresponsibility and everything else. So, in the end, things will all be under control," he said.
As part of the investigation into corruption related to the Commercial Agreement and its annexes for the construction of the Novi Sad - Subotica railway section, the Serbian Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime yesterday arrested 11 people, including former Minister of Construction Tomislav Momirović, and Goran Vesić, who is currently receiving hospital treatment, is also included in the proceedings. They are suspected of damaging the state budget by 115 million dollars.
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