{"id":8260,"date":"2016-02-22T20:41:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T18:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/en\/?p=8260"},"modified":"2016-09-21T12:52:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T10:52:51","slug":"serbia-skeletons-in-the-closet-how-did-the-health-minister-get-an-apartment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/en\/serbia-skeletons-in-the-closet-how-did-the-health-minister-get-an-apartment\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeletons in the Closet \u2013 How Did the Health Minister get an Apartment"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stevan Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 and Pavle Petrovi\u0107 KRIK\/OCCRP<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In the late summer of 2002, Montenegrin criminal Veselin Bo\u017eovi\u0107 looked like a lucky man.<\/p>\n

The mobster from Bijelo Polje had been ambushed by Kalashnikov-carrying members of the rival Rakovac gang in Belgrade while he was driving his black jeep in a three-car convoy. His wife and child, driving in a BMW in the same convoy, were also hit.<\/p>\n

Bo\u017eovi\u0107 was taken to the Emergency Center of the Clinical Center of Serbia with bullets in his shoulder and lung, according to media reports at the time, but he was alive and expected to survive. His wife and child also survived, as did two innocent bystanders who were also injured.<\/p>\n

What Bo\u017eovi\u0107 didn\u2019t know was that for reasons that are still not clear, Du\u0161an Spasojevi\u0107, the leader of the Zemun Clan (a gang Bo\u017eovi\u0107 was not warring with), thought it would be better if Bo\u017eovi\u0107 didn\u2019t survive, according to testimony from two Zemun Clan members in separate court hearings in 2004 and 2006.<\/p>\n

\"ministar<\/a>

Zlatibor Lon\u010dar<\/p><\/div>\n

According to one gang member\u2019s testimony, the man who was supposed to help him, an Emergency Center doctor named Zlatibor Lon\u010dar, then 30, finished off Bo\u017eovi\u0107 by injecting him with a fatal cocktail. The doctor\u2019s reward for the murderous deed was a free apartment that Spasojevi\u0107 had bought specifically to reward gang members or \u201chis people,\u201d according to the two former members turned protected witnesses.<\/p>\n

The first claim that Lon\u010dar got a free apartment was made in 2004, a year after the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran \u0110in\u0111i\u0107 by members of the Zemun Clan and Operation Sablija (Saber), the police action that followed which led to the death of Spasojevi\u0107 in 2003 and a dismantling of the once-feared gang.<\/p>\n

At the time the allegations were made, Lon\u010dar, then a young, unknown doctor, denied the claims outright on RTS television. Police never filed charges because there was not enough evidence.<\/p>\n

Skeleton in the Closet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fast-forward more than a decade and Lon\u010dar is now the powerful Minister of Health and a close associate of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n

New evidence has come to light that further bolsters the mobsters\u2019 testimony and shows that Lon\u010dar withheld important details about his ties to the Zemun Clan. Reporters for KRIK and OCCRP found that Lon\u010dar did acquire an apartment from a gang member just 10 days after the alleged murder of Bo\u017eovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

The apartment, on Ivana Ribara Street in New Belgrade\u2019s block 61, was owned by Jelena Kalini\u0107, the wife of Zemun Clan hitman Sretko Kalini\u0107, one of the gang\u2019s most violent members. She bought the 57-square-meter flat in April 2001. More than a year later, in September 2002, she signed a contract with Lon\u010dar.<\/p>\n

The contract states that Lon\u010dar paid 1.8 million dinars (\u20ac 30,800 or US$ 29,900) to Kalini\u0107, but there is no way to prove from public records if the money was ever paid. Lon\u010dar then sold the apartment about eight months later for about \u20ac50,000 according to the current owners who bought it from the doctor. Lon\u010dar did not respond to calls by KRIK for an interview.<\/p>\n

Lon\u010dar is the latest of Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s close associates to be connected to corruption or organized crime. In the last year, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivica Da\u010di\u0107, was exposed in videos meeting with a high-level drug dealer in a restaurant. His prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Mayor of Belgrade Sini\u0161a Mali, has been connected to Bulgarian apartments worth US$ 6 million transferred to him by a Lukoil official involved in a corrupt privatization of a Serbian gas company.<\/p>\n

The Gift<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the testimony of the two clan members obtained by KRIK\/OCCRP, the leaders of the clan were close to several doctors who worked in the emergency clinic. The doctors were bribed to act in the gang\u2019s behalf in case help was needed in the hospital.<\/p>\n

\"Zgrada<\/a>

Building in which the apartment is located<\/p><\/div>\n

Gang member Miladin Suvajd\u017ei\u0107 told the court that Spasojevi\u0107 bought real estate to give as bribes, although he described it as being in a neighboring block. Suvajd\u017ei\u0107 told the court that he was the gang member responsible for finding the apartments and making arrangements.<\/p>\n

According to Suvajd\u017ei\u0107, Spasojevi\u0107 \u201cwas buying apartments to (give to) his people. He was buying for some doctors…. Dr. Lon\u010dar from the emergency clinic. He got an apartment which before that was the apartment of Sretko Kalini\u0107 in New Belgrade in block 60.\u201d Back when Suvajd\u017ei\u0107 testified, Lon\u010dar was a virtually unknown doctor with no political or other known ties.<\/p>\n

Another gang member who was close to Spasojevi\u0107 told the court a similar story two years later. Dejan Milenkovi\u0107 Bagzi, who also became a protected witness, said Lon\u010dar participated in the killing of Bo\u017eovi\u0107. Bagzi said Lon\u010dar was also a frequent visitor at the Zemun gang headquarters \u2013 a large building on \u0160ilerova Street in Zemun.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Lon\u010dar) was there every other day in \u0160ilerova. Dr. Lon\u010dar even participated in some murders and that\u2019s why he (Spasojevi\u0107) gave him that apartment in block 61,\u201d Bagzi said. It is not clear what other murders Bagzi was talking about.<\/p>\n

Bagzi told the court that Lon\u010dar specifically helped assassinate Bo\u017eovi\u0107. He also testified that a second doctor, Dr. Miroslav Risovi\u0107, also worked for the gang. Risovi\u0107 left Serbia in 2004 after Operation Sablja, reportedly going to Canada. KRIK\/OCCRP could not find Risovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

\"Ubica<\/a>

Sretko Kalini\u0107 i Du\u0161an Spasojevi\u0107<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201c(Bo\u017eovi\u0107) survived. Spasojevi\u0107 then, for reasons unknown for me, first told Dr. Risovi\u0107 to [murder Bo\u017eovi\u0107]. I was present when he told him, but Risovi\u0107 had second thoughts \u2013 he said he will do it in two hours, three hours, later. Then Lon\u010dar came and said that he\u2019d finish that. In the emergency clinic, (he said) that he injected some injection, something, infusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

A police officer who worked on the case and asked to remain anonymous, told KRIK-OCCRP reporters that it was not possible to prosecute Lon\u010dar and other doctors based only on the testimony on criminals, since there was no additional proof.<\/p>\n

After the testimony became public in 2006, Lon\u010dar admitted that he was questioned by police but denied any involvement in the murder.<\/p>\n

Neighbors confirmed Lon\u010dar\u2019s cousin lived in the building for less than a year before the apartment was sold.<\/p>\n

Other Ties<\/strong><\/p>\n

Help us to investigate! DONATE!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

Lon\u010dar is not the only member of his family who has had dealings with organized crime in Belgrade. His wife, Vesna, is a lawyer who served on a team that defended members of Darko \u0160ari\u0107\u2019s group during their trial for cocaine smuggling in Serbia\u2019s Special Court for Organized Crime. The \u0160ari\u0107 gang, then one of the most powerful Balkan narco cartels, saw some of its members arrested after the Balkan Warrior police operation in 2009. Vesna Lon\u010dar was the lawyer for two members of the group \u2013 Darko To\u0161i\u0107 and Nenad Novakovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

She also defended another famous Serbian criminal, Sreten Joci\u0107 aka Joca Amsterdam, in the case of the murder of Croatian journalist Ivo Pukani\u0107. She is also representing the brothers of PM Vu\u010di\u0107 and Belgrade Mayor Sini\u0161a Mali in a case against police officers who allegedly beat them.<\/p>\n

Vesna Lon\u010dar is also president of the supervisory board of the Post of Serbia.<\/p>\n

According to the Serbian land records, Lon\u010dar currently owns half of a 75-square-meter duplex apartment in the center of Belgrade that he bought for \u20ac 180,000 (US$ 255,000) with his wife in 2009. His wife separately owns another 82-square-meter apartment in New Belgrade, which was given to her by her ex-husband.<\/p>\n

Watch animation of the story:<\/strong>
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