Exclusive Confession of Serbian MUP Members: Vučić's Spies Staged the Attack in Potočari!

Police officers from the Department for Observation and Documentation (OOD) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, Milan Dumanović and Mladen Trbović, have filed a criminal complaint against high-ranking officials of the MUP for abuse of official position and influence peddling, reports the news agency Patria.  

Dumanović and Trbović, who until recently worked in the Department for Observation and Documentation (informally: the secret surveillance service), in an exclusive interview for Teleprompter.rs describe how a parallel structure within the MUP carried out two criminal spy missions in a foreign country.

The criminal complaint was filed with the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office against Dejan Milenković Bagzi, head of the Service for Special Investigative Methods, Goran Nešić, head of the OOD, Tomislav Radovanović, deputy head of the OOD, and Dijana Hrkalović, secretary of the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP).

In the criminal complaint, obtained by Teleprompter.rs, it is stated that the suspects “on multiple occasions engaged OOD workers under false processing orders, without an open operational processing and a court order.”

It is further added that OOD officers were “ordered to conduct secret surveillance on the territory of a foreign state.”

Trbović then describes his observations in the criminal complaint:

- On July 11, 2015, during the live TV broadcast of the attack on Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić in Srebrenica, I thought I saw colleagues from the OOD. Upon arriving at work on July 13, 2015, I learned from colleague Milan Dumanović that they had been on the territory of BiH and I have reasonable suspicion that certain abuses were committed and that certain laws were violated.

He adds that he saw the same colleagues at a joint political rally of the opposition and the government held in Banja Luka in mid-May.

Teleprompter contacted Milan Dumanović.

He reveals that police officers from the secret surveillance unit of the Serbian MUP were sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of a secret mission, stating that he was told he must not tell anyone there that he is a member of the Serbian MUP.

– The Serbian MUP secretly sent 49 police officers from five different services to political rallies in Banja Luka. We were sent there without official identification and service weapons. We were told we were civilians, but that we had to conduct secret surveillance in a foreign country. The order-givers emphasized that we must not reveal who we are and who we work for if someone arrests us. They only told us that in that case we would have to serve time in prison and that someone would come for us later, says Dumanović for Teleprompter.rs.

According to him, the problem is that the Serbian MUP has never before sent operatives on spy missions to foreign countries, nor is that within the MUP's jurisdiction. Secondly, none of those 49 police officers were adequately trained for that job.

– They gave us surveillance and recording equipment. I was a cameraman with a fake news crew. Our task was to monitor alleged suspicious activities at a political rally in a foreign country. Honestly, we were all afraid for our lives because we were on a spy mission in another country as civilians. We had no weapons, nor could we count on official help from our state if any problem arose, describes Dumanović.

Asked how they even crossed the border, Dumanović says they were ordered to give a false excuse to the Border Police of BiH.

– The MUP provided us with five official vehicles. Each group received 40 euros. When we arrived at the border, they asked us for the reason for entering BiH. We told them we were going to some seminar or course. Each team had a different excuse. On the other hand, in the official MUP documents, it says we were on operations on the territory of Serbia, in Loznica, Bajina Bašta, and other places, explains Dumanović.

He states that he was also on a secret mission in Potočari when the attack on Aleksandar Vučić occurred. Dumanović reveals that he was in the crowd when the attack began, noting that he was at that spot even before it was known that Vučić would walk through the people.

– When we arrived in Srebrenica, we encountered the head of the prime minister's security detail from the “Cobras.” He didn't know we had come, nor did we receive official instructions on what we were supposed to do and on what basis. At that time, 17 officers from the secret surveillance service were sent. He was surprised. He asked us what we were doing in Srebrenica. We told him we came on the oral order of Ivan Ristić, chief of staff of Minister Nebojša Stefanović. My task was to stand in the crowd and secretly record. Goran Nešić gave me that order, states Dumanović.

He adds that his recordings were unusable due to outdated equipment.

– Ristić later came to my office to see what I had recorded. He entered arrogantly in shorts and slippers and said the recordings were worthless. No one cared that we could have all lost our heads if something went wrong, he states.

Asked for what reasons the MUP sent officers from the secret surveillance service in civilian clothes and without protection on a spy mission to a foreign country and who organized that criminal operation, Dumanović replies:

– I'm not sure, but I don't believe that Prime Minister Vučić and his security detail were even aware of what the MUP was doing. These illegal missions were organized by a parallel structure within the MUP that privatized the police. At the head of that group is Dijana Hrkalović and the others we named in the criminal complaint. Everything is done on oral orders, without a court order and official documents.

It has never happened before that the MUP sends its people on spy missions to foreign countries. Now it's becoming practice. We are not trained for such operations and our lives were seriously endangered. That group of people does all this to curry favor with Vučić, in the sense that – Vučić and Dodik cooperate well, the Serbian MUP is there to help if someone tries to disrupt that relationship, states Dumanović.

On the other hand, Mladen Trbović tells Teleprompter.rs that he informed the Protector of Citizens and Prime Minister Vučić personally about the crime organized by the top of the MUP on the territory of a foreign state.

– No one has responded to me for months. I even stated that the prime minister's security was endangered by such behavior. No one even called me to ask how the prime minister's security was endangered, and the Protector of Citizens also remained silent, says Trbović for Teleprompter.rs.

He wonders what the Serbian MUP has to do with political rallies in BiH, stating that there has been a serious violation of the law, since they are a body for maintaining public security in Serbia, not in foreign countries.

– A parallel structure has been created in the police. Everything is done on oral orders for private purposes. Parallel secret surveillance services are being created again under the direct command of Dijana Hrkalović, which will in the future violate the human rights of Serbian citizens without hindrance. Recently, they dismissed and transferred about a dozen experts from the secret surveillance service to lower positions and brought in the same people who were participants in the affair over illegal surveillance of journalists, says Trbović.

When Dijana Hrkalović and her superiors learned that Dumanović and Trbović would file a criminal complaint, they were immediately transferred to lower positions. From the MUP headquarters in the Palace of Serbia, they were demoted to positions of ordinary police officers in the Pančevo Police Administration.