“Documentaries” BIA and MUP: Followed, filmed and listened to dozens of murdered people and did not prevent a single crime

That something is not right in the Serbian “security community” is undoubtedly shown by the latest case, when information emerged in the public domain that the BIA was monitoring the “slaughterhouse” of the Belivuk clan in Ritopek, and that at least five cases of victim-bringing were filmed, but no action was taken by the authorities. People were going in and out of the house of horrors in Ritopek, and all this was happening in full view of the members of the Security and Information Agency.

As journalist Vuk Cvijić wrote in NIN, Veljko Belivuk and members of his gang were followed and filmed by Security Information Agency operatives as they committed the five murders for which they are accused. However, none of these atrocious crimes were prevented, and the question is why?

Although the BIA does not have the power to make arrests, it can file criminal charges or inform the MUP of its findings, but neither has been done.

“Veljko Belivuk was physically pursued and under surveillance by the BIA at the time that five of the seven victims were killed, for which he was charged as the leader of an organised criminal group. This is evidenced by surveillance orders seen by the NIN, which did not include the Sky app allegedly used by the accused to organise the murders,” NIN reveals.

A warrant for monitoring Belivuk was issued on July 16, 2020. Before him, on May 12, 2020, the order was issued for Marko Budimir, who is now accused as a member of the group, it was stated in the NIN text.

Interestingly, according to the NIN, it was only on 10 December that an order was issued in the Belivuk case to install two cameras on public lighting poles in Ritopek, at the house that the indictment says was used by the accused and that the murders were committed. This order was issued the day after the last murder of Ljepoja.

What is unusual is that an interesting, but very disturbing video was broadcast on television with a national frequency, which shows the car in which Milan Lljepoja, the Niš Pink Panther, was killed, entering the yard.

Given the position of the CCTV camera, it was logical to assume that there was no question of the level of security of the Belivuk-Miljkovic clan, although that is the responsibility of someone else, the police or the BIA.

That it is a camera that monitors the accused, is indicated by its position, because it does not record who approaches the house, but who enters and, what is also important for the intelligence officers, who leaves the house.

But many entered but never exited, and this went almost unnoticed by Serbian intelligence. It is also interesting to note that the footage of Milan Ljepoje arrest, which was broadcast on national television, is explained in detail, but that the date on the camera is 8 December 2020, two days before the BIA received the order to install the CCTV cameras.

This means either that someone else was monitoring the house in Ritopek, or that they were installed before the order.

At least five victims of the Belivuk-Miljković clan were killed while Veljko Belivuk and his team were “under measures”, but this is neither the first nor the only case that such a thing has happened.

Indeed, the BIA has extensive experience in tracking down people who are killed “without witnesses”. The most famous case is the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, journalist and owner of the “Dnevni telegraf” and “Evropljanin” in 1999. After the changes on 5 October 2000, the Ćuran dossier surfaced and it turned out that Slavko Ćuruvija had been intensively followed until a few minutes before the 11 April 1999, when he was killed in the haustor of the building where he lived in Svetogorska Street.

Agents of the then DB followed Ćuruvija, on the grounds that he had to meet some “foreign contact”. All the agents were withdrawn, which is a strange decision, and there is no logic that the people who were following him while he was walking along Knez Mihailova Street were not keeping watch over his house and keeping an eye on who was going in and out.

The then head of the DB, Radomir Marković and Milan Radonjić, were sentenced to 30 years in the first instance for his murder, while Ratko Romić and Miroslav Kurak were sentenced to 20 years. That verdict has since been revoked and the trial will begin again in March this year, 24 years after the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija.

It is not only the BIA/DB that is monitoring, filming, photographing, eavesdropping and not seeing. Their colleagues from the MUP are not lagging behind in this discipline either. In fact, during the time of the State Secretary of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, Dijana Hrkalovic, the “Mangusta” campaign was launched against members of an organised criminal group, in fact, associates of Luka Bojovic.

The operational processing started on 6 February 2018, and persons suspected of participation in murders, drug trafficking and membership in an organised criminal group were monitored.

Since the beginning of the “Mangusta” operation, murders have been taking place of the very people the police suspected of being close associates of Bojović. In May 2018, Dragoslav Miloradovic Gale, a close associate and godfather of Luka Bojovic, was killed.

On 19 June 2018, a car carrying Siniša Milić Boske, who is also believed to be close to Bojović and his associate Filip Korac, was blown up in Avtokomanda, a few metres from the Special Court. Another person from the circle close to Luka Bojović and Filip Korac was liquidated in that bloody year of 2018 for them.

Among those who died in the second half of 2018, during the “Mangusta” campaign, is also a prominent Belgrade lawyer, Dragoslav Miša Ognjanović.

He was killed on 28 July 2018 in front of the entrance of the building where he lived. Despite questions from numerous journalists and the police and prosecutors, it is not known why Miša Ognjanović, who represented Luka Bojović, was also ” under the measure”, as well as some members of his team.

Interestingly, there is a recording of a meeting of the two deceased Ognjanović and Miloradović in a Belgrade bar, made by members of the MUP, but it is never made public which Dragoslav was at the meeting, the lawyer or the godfather of Luka Bojović.

The conversation is also included in the indictment against former MUP State Secretary Dijana Hrkalović.