The mafia as part of the Serbian state – the night when Vučić, Belivuk, and Radoičić demolished Savamala for the interests of arab billionaires

In the night between 24 and 25 April 2016, while Belgrade was still gripped by the tension of Parliamentary Election Day, another battlefront opened in the shadows: Savamala was turned into an urban war zone as masked men armed with baseball bats and accompanied by bulldozers demolished buildings across the neighborhood.

This was not an accident, nor the “urban mistake” that authorities initially claimed, but a coordinated operation and a blatant act of state-enabled brutality.

Homeowners and business owners, including the Iskra company, watched as 1,057 square meters of their commercial property were razed to the ground—without a court order, without police presence, without any legal process. A security guard, tied up like a hostage, later died under suspicious circumstances. This was more than a demolition; it was a stark display of corruption, carried out to clear space for the multibillion-euro “Belgrade Waterfront” project, built on the ruins of ordinary citizens’ property.

Behind this criminal machinery stood not anonymous workers, but a network of organized crime figures tied directly to Serbia’s political leadership. Veljko Belivuk—known as “Velja Nevolja”—leader of the “Janissaries” gang, was not merely a criminal but an asset of the state, cultivated in the shadow of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

“We served the needs of the state,” Belivuk declared during his 2022 trial.

Alongside businessmen Zvonko Veselinović, Milan Radoičić, and the late Aleksandar Stanković (“Sale Mutavi”), Belivuk admitted that his group had been deployed to demolish Hercegovačka Street to pave the way for the UAE-backed megaproject. It was not the first time the “Janissaries” had acted on behalf of the authorities: they broke up protests, intimidated taxi drivers who opposed government policies, “secured” the Pride Parade with covert threats, and suppressed anti-Vučić chants in football stadiums.

Belivuk did not deny any of this. He stated in court that his gang was formed “for the needs of and on the orders of Aleksandar Vučić,” the President of Serbia, who—according to testimony—had met him personally and advised him to coordinate further with former Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin.

Vučić, the chief architect of this grim operation, was not a passive observer. As the leader of SNS, he was described as the conductor of a system where mafia structures and political power operated hand in hand. Trial transcripts revealed allegations that the group provided “services” to the state—from crushing opposition protests to intimidating political adversaries—effectively functioning as a private paramilitary apparatus for the regime.

“Vučić and his associates demanded more services,” Belivuk claimed, describing a network where stadium hooligans evolved into professional enforcers.

President Vučić denied all accusations, yet the evidence is difficult to dismiss: Belivuk had photos with Vučić’s son, Danilo, and maintained ties with senior SNS-linked figures such as Aleksandar Vidojević (“Aca Rošavi”), another hooligan close to the presidential family. Belivuk even offered to testify about the Savamala case, the murder of opposition politician Oliver Ivanović, and the suspicious death of lawyer Vladimir Cvijan, a former Vučić ally—yet Serbian authorities showed no appetite for investigation, allowing the case to stagnate for years.

Nine years after that night, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has finally weighed in. On 18 November 2025, it ruled that Serbia violated Iskra’s right to the “peaceful enjoyment of property,” ordering the state to pay a symbolic €6,000 — €3,000 in moral damages and €3,000 for legal costs. While modest in amount, the ruling is significant: it opens the door for Iskra to pursue full compensation in domestic courts, and sends a clear warning that the European Union will not ignore unlawful state-mafia collaboration.

Yet the pain remains. No one has been held accountable for the destruction — neither the masterminds, nor the masked enforcers, nor the police officers who abandoned citizens that night. The death of the security guard remains unresolved, a haunting reminder of a deeper tragedy.

Savamala is not a forgotten scandal, but an open wound. It is the story of a country where hooligans become instruments of power, where a president allegedly recommends “better communication” with criminal groups, and where justice arrives not from Belgrade, but from Strasbourg.

Nine years after the roar of the bulldozers, the question persists: for how long will this darkness endure, where mafia and politics move in lockstep in a deadly dance?/TheGeopost.