Crime clan suspect says witnessed murders; mentions Jovanjica marijuana plant

NEWS 28.07.202121:57
Veljko Belivuk
Pedja Milosavljevic/AFP

Belgrade weekly NIN said in its latest issue that a suspected member of a crime clan claims to have seen its boss Veljko Belivuk killing several people and alleged Serbia's Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin asked him to guard the Jovanjica marijuana plant.

Bojan Hrvatin, suspected of being a member of the Belivuk crime clan, told the weekly that he was given a cell phone with encripted Skype which the group used to communicate among themselves and to send pictures of dead bodies to the head of a rival crime clan.

Belivuk and his closest associates were arrested earlier this year on charges of murder and drug trafficking. Belivuk later told prosecutors that he met with President Aleksandar Vucic and senior state and ruling party officials who told him to stop several protests and take control of the Partizan FC supporters who were chanting insults against Vucic among other things. His words were echoed by one of his closest associates who added that Minister Aleksandar Vulin ordered them to take a car full of firearms and leave it near the Vucic family home. The government and state officials denied all the claims about Vucic.

Hrvatin described in detail how Belivuk tricked people to meet him and added that he witnessed one murder and was told at least once that Belivuk killed someone. He said that he was paid 10,000 Euro to take part in a kidnapping. He also described how the bodies were put through a grinder before being tossed into the Danube.

He said that he was involved in two murders and that he was forced to leave his fingerprints on a handgun.

NIN also published a part of Marko Miljkovic, Belivuk’s ally, statement to the Prosecutors, in which he indirectly talked about the Jovanjica marijuana plant, the largest in Europe, according to the indictment. He alleged that Vulin asked him to guard the property owned by “a German.” The owner of the Jovanjica plant Predrag Koluvija holds German citizenship as well.

Miljkovic said he rejected the offer because they (the crime group he allegedly belonged to) did not want to work with Serbia’s Information and Security Agency (BIA) agents.

„Soon after that, I saw in media that the arrest had happened at the premises, and I sent him (Vulin) a message: “Is this true?” His response was: “That b…h Dijana (Hrkalovic, a high-ranked MUP official) will pay me big time for that,” Miljkovic said, according to the NIN report.

He added he and Vulin had never spoken about that again.