At the end of last year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska attacked the media due to, as they said, inaccurate information that was released to the public, concerning the disappearance of material evidence from the warehouse of the former barracks “Sarica” not far from Banja Luka. Senior MUP officials officially denied that there were thefts from the depot and thus shamelessly deceived the public by putting themselves in the service of criminals who committed serious crimes.
“There is no “Deposit” affair in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska. The Ministry initiated activities on the relocation of the deposit located in the former barracks “Sarica”, having in mind that the mentioned facility at that location was handed over to the ownership of the municipality of Laktaši. In this regard, the Ministry has formed a Commission for the relocation of deposited items, which should determine the status of the deposit and move it to a special facility of the Ministry for that purpose. The competent courts and the prosecutor’s office were informed about all the above, according to whose orders the items are kept in the deposit “- announced on November 5, 2021, those competent from the Ministry of Interior.
However, we received a drastically different answer to the inquiry sent by the Infoveza portal to the Ministry of the Interior at the beginning of March this year.
“Regarding your questions from March 6. and 14.03.2022. We would like to inform you that all items in the deposit are kept on the orders of the competent courts and prosecutor’s offices, and for more information, you need to contact them as competent. The Ministry, i.e. the basic organizational units of the Ministry of the Interior have reported to the competent judicial authorities any change in the condition of the items kept in the deposit, and as we stated, you need to contact the competent judicial authorities,” said Mirna Miljanović, Head of the Department for public relations.
Infoveza finds out that cars (in parts), gold (jewellery), money, narcotics, weapons, but also other things that were material evidence in current cases before the Serbian judiciary disappeared from the depot in “Sarica”. The District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Banja Luka also confirmed that the authorities from the Ministry of the Interior shamelessly lied in November last year, revealing in a statement for the Srpska Info portal that several investigations are already underway into the disappearance of material evidence from the deposit.
“The District Public Prosecutor’s Office of Banja Luka has four cases in progress in connection with the disappearance of evidence from the deposit of the RS Ministry of the Interior in the “Sarica” barracks. Two cases are open and pending (of which one case is in the phase of investigation against unidentified persons or more of them, while the other case is in the phase of gathering the necessary information), in one case the prosecutor’s decision to suspend the investigation, while an indictment was filed against Ž.G. in one case due to the criminal offence of abuse of official position or authority under Article 315, paragraph 1 of the RS Criminal Code. The indictment was forwarded to the Basic Court in Banja Luka for confirmation,” the Banja Luka Prosecutor’s Office said at the time.
It is especially interesting that the Ministry of the Interior remained silent when asked by our portal whether their officers had informed them and whether they had given official statements regarding the theft of material evidence from the depot.
The incredible testimony of our source (identity known to the editorial office), one of the guards of the depot in “Sarica”, reveals one of the ways of theft, which is associated with the involvement of higher instances of the Ministry of the Interior in the whole case.
“During the inventory of items in the deposit, Inspector Popović, the owner of car waste in Ramići, participated. After the census was carried out, he removed the parts from the seized vehicles and loaded the parts into his official car. Also, I saw that he put some things in his jacket. I noticed that he put the stolen parts in the car, after which I approached him and warned him not to do that”, our source begins the story.
After that, as he says, he went to Goran Vojvodić, the head of the census commission, and reported the case, after which Vojvodić ordered the parts to be returned.
“Popović later returned the parts. I made an official note about it and submitted it to my commander, who forwarded it to the Directorate for Organized Crime, which, acting on the said note, conducted disciplinary proceedings against Popović and fined him 100 KM, and it is especially interesting why SHE DID NOT SUBMIT A REPORT TO THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE and she was obliged to do so”, our source points out.
After the whole case, Inspector Popović was transferred from the Organized Crime Directorate to the Potkozarje station.
The Infoveza portal finds out that only two people have the keys to the deposit: Goran Božić (retired in the meantime) and Željko Gavrić. According to the regulations of the Ministry of the Interior, the deposit may be entered only in the presence of one of them and only by order of the acting court and prosecutor’s office or on the order of the Minister, due to control of the deposit. Another omission was made during Božić’s retirement, because the handover and comparison of the situation were not done, which will lead to the fact that during the SIPA intrusion, it was determined that there is a lack of evidence from criminal proceedings, for which Željko Gavrić is accused.
In addition to all the above-mentioned omissions, the source of our portal also explains that the seals were removed from the official bags, i.e. that the bags were opened, which is a criminal offence par excellence.
Minister of Police Dragan Lukač himself admitted that there are weeds in the MUP of Srpska, when, two days ago, commenting on the connection between police and criminals, Lukač said that no police in the world is immune to this phenomenon, and that the Ministry will conduct a comprehensive investigation throughout Srpska.
“Any and every police officer who is proven to have been in contact with any criminal, especially if he disclosed certain information, will be prosecuted and expelled from the Ministry,” Lukač said.
The practice of disappearing evidence from court deposits is nothing new. We all remember the fire that happened early in the morning on November 4, 2010, it broke out on the premises of the Banja Luka Basic Court and for which it has been proven that it was planted. No one was injured in the fire at the time, but many pieces of material evidence from the criminal proceedings were burned. Although firefighters quickly intervened and localized the fire, for more than half an hour, minor explosions echoed in the court because the fire also affected weapons that were deposited as evidence.
The man convicted of negligent work in the service due to the fire in the Basic Court in Banja Luka is Petar Božić, who was sentenced to 11 months. According to unofficial information in the possession of our portal, Božić is now preparing documentation for the revision of the verdict, because he claims that he is not responsible for the fire, because, as we find out, he denies that he committed the crime for which he was convicted and served his sentence. His main argument is that eight court police officers secured the building, and the cameras were turned off. None of the guards charged him because he worked at the court porter’s lodge.
It is also interesting that money was stolen from the safe/deposit of the Basic Court in Banja Luka recently (during this year), about which the media have already written.
Police officers “lost” documents from investigations at gas stations
The negligence of the governments in the Ministry of the Interior is also proven by the documents in the possession of the Infoveza portal, which concern the investigations conducted by the members of the Ministry of the Interior. Namely, at the beginning of March, at the gas station “Nes” in the Banja Luka settlement “Ada”, members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs “lost” crucial evidence related to the investigation against Mladen Samardžija and others, which concerns drug trafficking. The question is why the police officers walked around with the evidence from the investigation and why did they take them out of the white Peugeot 301 car they were driving, that is, to whom did they show them at the mentioned gas station? The question is whether the police officers just cooperated with the suspect and whether they showed them the evidence from the investigation, or is it pure negligence and unprofessionalism?
Given that this is an international investigation, the whole thing gained weight. Namely, on May 14, 2021, the Slovenian police broke into the cell of the Kavač criminal clan there and suspected at least 60 people of smuggling drugs, weapons and illegally transferring millions earned from that job from Spain to Belgrade.
Police found that the group included twenty Slovenian citizens, twelve from Serbia, eight from Bosnia and Herzegovina, five from Croatia, two Montenegrin citizens and one Macedonian. Among the suspects are all the people in the photos. Slovenian police suspect them that from August 2018, until May 2021, they committed dozens of crimes related to the smuggling of drugs, weapons and money.
Author: Stefan Blagić
