Three weeks after something drove the crowd from Kralja Milana Street in Belgrade and seven days after "Vreme", based on hundreds of testimonies, published the detailed Dossier "Huk" - nothing happened. Or at least nothing concrete.
It is claimed that two investigations are underway. The case is in the First Basic Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, and operatives of the Russian FSB service are allegedly also on the ground. The American FBI in its response to "Vreme" says that it can neither confirm nor deny that it is participating in the investigation, although Serbian officials had previously pompously invited them as well.
According to "Vremen" research, everything points to the fact that at the giant protest on March 15, some kind of external force was used against peaceful citizens at 19.11:XNUMX, in the midst of silence for the victims of the canopy. The public talked about the sonic or vortex cannon the most.
However, President Aleksandar Vučić repeats that these are all "lies" and chooses to make people crazy. It's as if the earlier version served by the BIA through the tabloids has fallen into disrepair - that the entire stampede was caused by student-guards who were retreating from the plateau in front of the Assembly towards Kralja Milana Street.
Furthermore, Vučić opened a new round of mockery of the incident on Pink TV, suggesting that running away from the street was rehearsed. He commented on the fact that, among thousands of citizens, some did not stay away from the street at that time. "Some were mistaken and stayed in the middle because there was nothing wrong with them. They didn't hear the command 'come on, take cover to the left and right,'" said the president with an amused laugh.
"They need lies and they think that with lies, as they say, they can 'inflate' something. There is nothing like that, the people want a decent Serbia, they are fed up with terror and the pendulum of anger has swung the other way," said Vučić.
PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE WITH LIMITED INVESTIGATION
The Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade states that it is continuing with the checks. "Currently, data is being collected on persons who have received injuries or suffered hardships. Also, the prosecution has asked the Protector of Citizens for available information on the collected data on the critical event. In addition to the above, we are not able to state other facts at this stage," they stated in the answers to "Vremen".
They did not answer the question whether they take into account the map published by our editorial office, on which, based on testimonies, the epicenter of the noise is located between the intersection of Ulica Kralja Milana and Knez Miloš, and Cvetni trg. The map also shows the places of the accompanying diversions, that is, the simultaneous attack with cannon strikes on the citizens.
If no one has seen or filmed any weapon, it is the men in black who "bombed" the people from the construction site in Kralja Milana Street moments after the ominous roar. No one was arrested. It was not clarified what the three white vans without windows and without registration, parked right in front of the cordon on the morning of the protest, represented in front of the Presidency in Kralja Milan. They disappeared only a few days later, when "Vreme" wrote about them.
Moreover, the source of "Vremen" from the First Prosecutor's Office says that the prosecutors were told "from above" to deal only with "how people panicked", excluding the possibility that any weapons were used.
In this direction, the earlier announcement of the prosecutor's office, just three days after the protest, when based on the police, army and BIA memos, they claimed that no weapons were used, and that nothing like a sound cannon was seen on the streets that day. Although it is, even the Minister of Police Ivica Dacic, after contradictory statements, had to demonstrate to journalists that the LRAD is supposedly just a stronger megaphone.
STORM INVESTIGATION
Đorđe Alempijević, a professor of forensic medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, has participated in a series of investigations around the world for similar cases - the latest for the attack on protesters in Tbilisi last December.
But even he had not seen anything like this in Belgrade. It seems, Alempijević told "Vreme", that the investigation is behaving like a bad doctor who tells the patient from the door that he imagined all the problems. And the time for a serious investigation is running out.
"Every investigation must be effective. The more time passes, the more noise you have. We are witnessing contradictory information given by the highest representatives of the government. This creates a dose of doubt. Perhaps it is better not to give information immediately and say that you do not know something, that only the investigation will determine. This gives a dose of seriousness," says Alempijević.
After the protest, there were reports of people suffering health effects, from anxiety to hearing damage. There were fractures and lacerations in the stampede. But while certain newsrooms and non-governmental organizations deal with the collection of those testimonies, there is nothing to indicate that the prosecution took this matter seriously.
"The first way is for people to report to the prosecutor's office with medical reports. The second way is for the prosecutor's office to ask health organizations for reports for all examined patients in a given period," says Alempijević. He says that such a serious analysis cannot be done in two or three days. "In a very short time after the meeting, there was a complete denial of the event, rejection of any agent that caused such a reaction of people and everything was attributed to the psychological reaction of people, although their number gives credibility to the testimonies. So even if you put forward the thesis that people invented everything, then that also requires the responsibility of those people, but you have to rule out the use of an agent that caused it."
According to him, experts from the Institute and the Institute of Forensic Medicine or medical faculties should be involved in the investigation by order of the prosecution. He does not know whether and how they are involved.
Several non-governmental organizations reported that they also appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of the injured parties, and that court received the answers of the Serbian authorities on Monday (March 31). The deadline for the next submissions is April 8. In the response to "Vreme", the European Court only confirms that it is "considering" the submitted request, but "cannot" provide more information at this time.
THEORIES LACK OF FINAL PROOF
The media and experts question two theories, the one about the use of sonic weapons and the one about the whirling cannon, the so-called vortex.
As for the first, Aleksandar Stanojkovic, a music producer and sound expert, interviewed a man with a hidden identity, who is said to be a US military officer specializing in the use of LRADs. That interlocutor says that the scenes and sound from Belgrade remind him of sonic weapons.
"Some LRAD models go up to 162 decibels at a twenty hertz level. This sends out a pulse, which we call burst, and it can cause many problems, from dizziness to depression. It can also disrupt electrical devices," he says, claiming that he tried the cannon on himself, although he didn't unscrewed at its strongest.
The one in Belgrade seems to him, he adds, like a powerful LRAD 2000X, which has a range of several kilometers, or some similar model. If so, it could easily have been activated from a great distance and height.
It is not known that the Serbian security forces acquired that model. It is known that, during the time of Alexander Vulin as Minister of Police, they bought and overpaid for nine miniature LRAD 100X models that fit in a backpack, as well as seven pieces of LRAD 450XL - one of which was spotted on a jeep near the Serbian Parliament on the day of the big protest.
The theory of a whirlwind cannon, which ejects a powerful ring of air, was suggested by students of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in the short film "Twelfth Minute" about the events in Kralja Milana. They even graphically presented the cannon on the roof of the "Albania" Palace.
When "Vremen" asked about it, the authors of the film state that they were guided by research, but that they are not responsible for the investigation, nor do they claim anything.
The roof of "Albanija" is interesting not only because from there there is a clear view all the way to Slavija and beyond, to the Church of Saint Sava, but also because the distance to the epicenter of the noise coincides with the calculation of the British organization Earshot. Their analysis of the roar from the recordings suggests a match with the sound of a whirlwind cannon about 700 meters from the epicenter.
U "ALBANIA" MUST NOT BE
Behind the marble walls of "Albania", the slightly confused older porters were alarmed at the arrival of the "Vremena" reporter, as if they already had orders for such cases. "We're going to have to deal with it if we let anyone in, everything has to be emailed first, then approval is obtained, and only then can you climb," said one.
The palace is managed by the Deposit Insurance Agency, which has been unsuccessfully selling "Albania" for three years. The spokeswoman of the agency, Vera Morina, says that various journalists these days are asking to go up to the roof, but that they cannot do so for security reasons. When asked if we can go to another floor, he says that he has to see the tenants.
When the line is drawn, there are too many indications that it is something accessed March 15. Neither physicists specializing in the movement of living masses nor social psychologists have any way to explain such a splitting of the people in one second, unless an outside agency came.
But there is no key proof. That statement from the last issue of "Vreme" was quoted with gusto in the morning program of a regime television, where everything else that "Vreme" found was kept silent.
As many as 93 percent of the readers of our "Međuvreme" newsletter say in the survey that they are convinced that some kind of weapon was used. As with many other things, the audience is divided according to political preferences, that is, whether or not they trust the government. And there are many reasons not to trust the authorities.
