Original article (in Serbian) was published on 02/04/2021
Ilija Milacic, the former head of the Belgrade Criminal Police Directorate (UKP), gave confidential police information to the editor-in-chief of the tabloid site “Objektiv” and for which he was sentenced to seven months of house arrest, reveals Raskrikavanje. Although Milacic’s arrest was presented in the media as part of the state’s confrontation with Veljko Belivuk’s group – the verdict does not mention his connections with this criminal organization.
According to the verdict of the High Court in Belgrade, Milacic had an official telephone number to which he received confidential information from the police and which he then forwarded to the editor-in-chief of the “Objektiv” website. With this, as the verdict mentions, he had endangered “national security, criminal and court proceedings and suppression of criminal acts”.
Milacic, after being arrested in mid-February this year, admitted that he sent information to the tabloid, and agreed with prosecutor Bojana Djordjevic to be sentenced to seven months of house arrest. The verdict banned Milacic from working in the police for the next five years.
The arrest of the police chief was presented by pro-regime tabloids as a showdown with the Veljko Belivuk’s people, the head of the criminal-fan group “Principi”, which is under investigation for the murders. However, the verdict convicting Milacic does not mention Belivuk or members of his group.
In a document, which the journalists received from the court, the name of the editor of the “Objektiv” website to whom the police chief submitted information, had been hidden. According to the data from this site, the editor is Dejan Vukelic, whom Raskrikavanje’s journalist contacted, but he did not want to talk about this case.
“I have no idea what you are talking about”, he said and added that he did not want to talk to KRIK journalists because he “was not Velja Nevolja”.
“Objektiv” was started last year, and its printed edition began publishing in January this year. In just one year, it entered the top 50 most read websites in Serbia, according to data from “Aleksa” – a site for ranking the popularity of other websites. Vukelic, the editor of the online edition of this tabloid, previously worked as a journalist for the Telegraf portal, while the printed edition is edited by Dusko Vukajlovic, who was previously the editor-in-chief of the tabloid “Alo”.
“Objektiv” is inclined towards the authorities, all criticism of the ruling party is missing in its texts, while at the same time it is settling accounts with the “enemies” of the current government. Also, confidential data from police investigations are often published.
The company “Objektiv”, which publishes the tabloid, was founded in mid-November, in 2019, by Bosko Milosavljevic, who was previously the owner of a hair salon and fitness club, and also owns a Chinese restaurant.
In February last year, the company moved from Belgrade to Trebinje, in Bosnia and Herzegovina and changed its owner – it passed into the hands of Srdjan Mijatovic, whose name is unknown in the media business. Milosavljevic remained the director of the company.
In mid-March this year, Mijatovic, through the company “Objektiv”, founded the company “Nedeljnik kurs”, registered for publishing magazines, but it is not known which magazine it publishes.