Miljkovic: If Belivuk and I organized a criminal group, then Vucic and Vulin are the instigators

Miljkovic began his testimony by describing how he met with Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin in the fall of 2019 at Club Gotik. On that occasion, Miljkovic said, Vulin asked him for two things – to find a safe house “for their needs” but also to “set up” the president of the Supreme Court in Belgrade.

The house he found for Vulin, Miljkovic claims, was the very house in Ritopek where the group, according to the prosecution, committed seven serious murders, torturing the victims beforehand.

– Vulin liked the house, but he didn’t like the access road, Miljkovic said. In an effort to strengthen his claim, he said that not long after that the road to the house was paved, which neither he nor Belivuk could have ordered, but only “the top of the executive power”.

As soon as he mentioned Vulin’s second request that Tijana Maksimovic be “set up” for Aleksandar Stepanovic, the president of the Supreme Court, to “remind him that he should listen to the boss,” Miljkovic was interrupted by Judge Vinka Beraha Nikicevic.

– What does this have to do with the serious crimes you are charged with, the judge asked.

Miljković replied that he did not know why the judge was interrupting him, and that the part from the indictment would come up.

Miljkovic objected to the judge’s remark that Vucic and Vulin did not indict him.

– They charge me. They already convicted me. I have to explain what led to that. If Veljko Belivuk and I organised a criminal group, then they are instigators, Miljkovic said, then went on to present his defence without interruption.

In describing everything leading up to the trial, Miljkovic said they declined to appeal the indictment so the trial could begin as soon as possible.

– However, they gave the case to Judge Zorana Trajkovic, who immediately went on sick leave. We lost four and a half months there. They were buying time, they were afraid of what we would say. But we did not want to negotiate with them, Miljkovic said.

Referring to the prosecution’s specific evidence, Miljkovic repeated the allegations made two days earlier by Veljko Belivuk. Their defense is that weapons and DNA traces were planted in the house in Ritopek, that the Sky application was obtained illegally, but also that the defendant’s associates decided to cooperate with the prosecution under pressure.

– They arrested our wives suspected of money laundering. Our wives only laundered money when they were washing our jeans with money in their pockets, Miljkovic said.

The second defendant, Miljković, also devoted part of his presentation to the Sky application through which the group communicated and, according to the indictment, shared photographs proving the execution of the murders. Miljković repeated that those photos were staged, stressing that the pictures shown at the press conference are not even in the evidence.

According to him, their lawyers were contacted by a man from Switzerland who claimed that his photo was among the photos published. Miljkovic said the man was alive and that the photo was from the period when he was injured in a brawl.

Following the same line of reasoning, Miljkovic said that no bodies of the victims were found and that “it is not a crime to be dead.” He said that none of the victims was a “theology student,” adding that no one could be surprised when people with such a background disappeared.

Repeating the thesis presented by Belivuk, Miljković said that it is not clear to him how they could have carried out the murders they are accused of, when it is taken into account that they were followed by the police and the BIA for six months.

– The BIA had a camera outside the house in Ritopek and allegedly have video showing Ljepoja entering the house. Then why did they allow us to kill Ljepoja? Are you then our accomplices? Why didn’t anyone send the police to raid the house, arrest or kill us all on the pretext that we resisted arrest, Miljkovic concluded.

After him, the defense presented the third defendant, Milos Budimir, who denied being a member of a criminal group, but exclusively of the fan group “Iz principa”. He also began his brief statement with a claim unrelated to the indictment, saying that he and other fans were hired during the state of emergency to light torches and chant on the roofs of buildings.

Speaking about the charges, Budimir reiterated that the police took DNA traces from them to place them in the house in Ritopek, stressing that they, as well as their families, were under extreme pressure.

Then a number of other defendants took the stand, repeating the same line, “I had nothing to do with the criminal acts charged against me. I will present my defence in detail during the trial. On the advice of counsel, I will not answer questions.”

The only one who deviated from this scenario was Nemanja Lakicevic, who is suspected of having participated in the plot to fraudulently take Zdravko Radojevic to a house in Ritopek, where, according to the prosecution, he was tortured and killed.

He denied all charges, saying he had been best friends with Radojevic for more than twenty years and that he did not know any of the accused.

– I had nothing to do with that. I’ve never been to Partizan’s stadium in my life and I’ve never seen any of the defendants. Lakicevic said that he only knows Milos Budimir, but they are not friends. However, he did not want to answer the prosecutor’s questions about whether he had ever spoken on the phone with Marko Miljkovic, saying that he did not remember. He also refused to answer questions about the correspondence via the Sky app.

The criminal proceedings in the Special Department of the High Court in Belgrade will continue tomorrow. There are thirty people who are accused of having committed seven serious murders, drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, kidnapping and rape as members of a criminal organization./Danas/