Continuation of the trial for the murder of police officers: Criminals inquired about the police officer working on the investigation

(Patria) - "Listen to this Serb, and he's so stubborn. He has to disappear. He has to be kidnapped, he has to be cut into pieces. I will eat his heart".

This is what Aleksandar Macan, one of the three accused of murdering Sarajevo police officers Adis Šehović and Davor Vujinović, wrote in one of the messages found in the decrypted Sky communications, writes Faktor. 

The message refers to Miroslav Plakalović, an investigator in the criminal police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Sarajevo Canton, who was one of the members of the investigation team working on the murder investigation, and who testified today before the Sarajevo Cantonal Court.

Plakalović, who is originally from East Sarajevo, was working with the murdered police officers Šehović and Vujinović at the Novi Grad Police Administration at the time of their murder and was among the first to arrive at the crime scene.

He said that he had worked with the murdered police officers for five years, and that after their murder, he "felt as if he was the third one with them in the vehicle", and that he then vowed to "chase their killers as long as he lived".

Three people in black

Immediately after the murder, he was assigned to survey the wider crime scene in the direction where the suspects' vehicle had fled, to check for witnesses and surveillance cameras. In conversations with citizens, as he recounted today, everyone described three people, dressed in black with caps, one of whom stood out due to his large build and height, and who, according to their descriptions, "walked strangely".

The accused Sava Marinković asked police officer Plakalović in the courtroom today, "if he was perhaps alluding to him when mentioning that large person", to which the witness replied: "I am not alluding, I think it was you".

Plakalović further stated during his testimony that in September 2019, at the invitation of the then police commissioner of the Sarajevo police, Nusret Selimović, he joined a special mixed investigation team tasked with re-investigating the murder from scratch.

He said that after analyzing everything collected so far, they had "two good leads" - one was a encrypted phone, and the other was contacts related to the recovery of the stolen "seat leon" vehicle.

In the meantime, as he explained, they received Sky data from EUROPOL, which they analyzed, and with its help, he identified the encrypted phone used by Aleksandar Macan.

Among the conversations he presented in court today, the witness cited one between Macan and Aleksandar Nikolić, in which Macan, who was then on the run in Spain, thanks Nikolić for the money he lent him for his escape. In that conversation, among other things, Macan tells Nikolić: "Just let the DNA pass and victory".

From these conversations, the witness further stated, they concluded that "as we investigated them, they investigated us".

He mentioned, among other things, a communication in which Aleksandar Nikolić inquired with Srećko Trifković about him.

In that communication, Nikolić asks Trifković "if he knows the cop Plakalović", to which he replies that "he is the one whose car Đoka set on fire". The witness stated today that explosives were placed under his car in 2003, and that it was speculated at the time that it was related to the arrest of Đorđe Ždral, but it was never determined who placed the explosives under his car and why.

Trifković also tells Nikolić in that conversation, "you can imagine what the 'mole' did, he put up cameras, you can't get near the car".

After the conversation in which Macan boasts to Božović, who, according to the witness, is the boss of the accused trio, about stealing 600 cars and makes threats against Plakalović, the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor's Office decides to remove him from the investigation of that case.

Macan apologized to the witness in the courtroom today for the message in which he mentions him, saying that there was no plan to kill him, but that he said it, as he stated today, "in anger, in affect".

- I never planned to harm him in any way and I want to apologize - Macan said today.

However, the witness said that he had received information that they had been inquiring about him, and "scouting and surveying", and that a school friend, who is close to criminal circles, told him that "dangerous types are asking about him".

The witness stated today that after he withdrew from the investigation of this case, he continued to work on Sky cases, and that it was thanks to this case that the whole Sky story was initiated.

- All those they are arresting now should know that Adis and Davor are arresting them, and all those who will be arrested should know that Adis and Davor will arrest them - Plakalović said, among other things.

Before him, two other members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Sarajevo Canton testified, whose testimony was interrupted last time due to a false bomb threat at the Court.

Witnesses Admir Šalaka and Edin Grabovica, more or less, repeated what had been heard from other investigators in this case earlier.

They spoke about how the movement of the phone with encrypted communication was "tracked", which was linked to two trips to Grude to Miroslav Čepo (October 19 and November 19, 2018), who testified that the first time Sava Marinković, Marko Trifković, and a third person who introduced himself as "Macan" or "Mačak" stayed with him, while the second time it was Marko Trifković alone.

What was found in the "golf"

Also, the phone, as confirmed by other witnesses earlier, was located in Lukavica after the murder of Miloš Ostojić, at the scene of the crime, in Kasindo hospital, as well as in the house of the murdered Ostojić. According to data obtained from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, Sava Marinković was staying at Ostojić's house at that time.

The phone was also located on Orthodox Christmas Eve in Hilandarska and Spasovdanska streets in Lukavica, where, according to the data the police had at the time, Marko Trifković, who was then on the run, was hiding.

The investigation determined that during that period, his then-girlfriend, and now wife, took the key to an apartment in Hilandarska Street, number 28, from friends, in order to stay there with Trifković.

To the claim of Trifković's lawyer, Dražen Zubak, that she returned the key the very next day, witness Grabovica said that it was "too many coincidences".

Lawyers for the accused, Bojan Veselinović and Duško Tomić, asked the witnesses today about the "golf" car, the attempted theft of which was in progress when the murdered police officers arrived.

Veselinović asked police officer Šalaka if that vehicle had passed through official records as a vehicle with a "stash", to which he replied that he was unaware of that.

Tomić asked the witness if he had seen the vehicle's photo documentation and "if he knew anything about drugs", to which the witness replied that he did not.

Tomić also asked witness Grabovica if he knew what was found in the "golf", to which he also answered in the negative.

The trial will continue on April 4.