Fatal Gang Clashes Rock Serbian Cities

As gang, fan and drug-related shootings and killings shake Serbian cities, a security expert says it all shows that the country is far from winning the proclaimed ‘war’ on mafia violence.

By Maja Živanović (BIRN) / Photo: Tanjug
@Maja_Zivanovic

A series of violent criminal attacks and incidents in Belgrade and Novi Sad in recent weeks have prompted experts to warn that criminals are using not only firearms but also bombs and shooting from passing cars in the course of ever-bolder attacks.

Sasa Djordjevic, from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, told BIRN that 119 days since the Serbian state declared “war” on the mafia, not much had been done.

“Since the violence on the streets is not slowing down and we have more innocent victims, the impression is that Serbia cannot deal with this war,” Djordjevic said.

Referring to Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic’s declaration of “war on the mafia” last October, Djordjevic said the real state of affairs was being covered up by use of positive statistics – and the problem was systemic and equally existed in the police, prosecution and judiciary.

On January 30, 25-year-old Vlastimir Milosevic was found dead with gunshot wounds in the head in a street in Belgrade. Six days later, police arrested a fan leader of the Belgrade sports club Partizan, Veljko Belivuk, on suspicion of the crime.

Reports also said Belivuk had been a close friend of Aleksandar Stankovic, also one of the leaders of Partizan fan club, who was killed last October in Belgrade.

Stankovic was a convicted drug leader and part of a group of people who attacked the director of Partizan, Milos Vazura, the previous April. Vazura escaped but one of his security staff was seriously injured.

Investigative journalists found out that all the participants in these incidents had received court sentences, in cases that had waited years to be applied.

Djordjevic said cooperation between the prosecution and the police was poor and responsibility for weak results was routinely transferred from one side to the other.

“The penalties for criminal acts of organized crime also have no deterrent effect,” he said, partly because trials last so long and verdicts are often infinitely delayed.

Meanwhile, on February 8, a bomb blast blew up the car of Ivan Ciric in Belgrade, marking the third time he survived attempted murder. Belgrade’s Blic daily reported that Ciric was also well known in criminal circles.

Similar incidents have happened in the northern city of Novi Sad, where, last November 19, Teodora Kacanski, 30, was wounded with five gun shots while trying to park in front of her building.

She was found unconscious in the parking lot, crawling and trying to escape, and died days later in hospital. Media reported she was the girlfriend of a man well known to the police.

Serbia’s second city has been hit by other acts of violence, including the beating to death of two young men in front of a sports club by a member of the club’s own security staff.

In another incident in front of a school, an unknown attacker opened fire on a jeep connected with a local drugs crime gang.

In the capital of neighbouring Montenegro, Podgorica, police have launched night-time raids and patrols in the city to curb the activities of crime and drugs gangs.

But Sasa Djordjevic said that while night-time raids like those in Montenegro may have a short-term effect on reducing violence, the crime groups soon consolidate.

“One way is showing strength and zero tolerance but real solutions must be long-term,” he said.

Djordjevic explained that in the US, which has long experience in combating street violence, special mixed teams have been set up to deal only with this kind of violence.

“Such a team in Serbia could be successful only if it was centralized, free of political interests and with a certain source of funding,” he said.

“And this is only the start of a chain, because the police, prosecution and judiciary must also work flawlessly if we want peaceful streets,” he concluded.

The article was originally published on the web-portal Balkan Insight.