Sometimes it's a coincidence, and sometimes it's an intention, says folk wisdom. Indeed, the murder of Aleksandar Nešović Baja in a restaurant in Senjak can perhaps be seen as an isolated case, in which a prominent member of the Serbian underground who is connected to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) died. Although this has not happened very often in the last decade - it is not unheard of for divergent interests to be resolved in this way in the criminal world. The last ten years are characterized by the fact that small fish usually died in mafia confrontations, while people close to the party in power could end up in prison only if they went too far, like Veljko Belivuk and his all star a fan-criminal team.
However, at the moment when Milan Ostojić aka Sandokan, known as the head of the "Sabač group" and the owner of the right of occupancy in the informal tent settlement of supporters of the government, was seriously wounded in Šabac screw à screw Parliament of Serbia, many eyebrows were raised as a sign of surprise and the question of which criminal structure is strong enough to attack people from the first SNS team.
Who is so brave (or crazy) as to knowingly strike at very serious and dangerous people who pay their debts to the goddess Justice in installments, serving in the front lines of the fight against it is blooming? Or maybe it's about some other process, reminiscent of the period between the end of the NATO bombing and October 5, 2000, when more criminals died in the street war in Belgrade than in the entire last decade of the 20th century until then.
By now, the reader already knows that Ostojić (51) was seriously wounded on July 8 in Šabac, when two men attacked him with firearms. He allegedly received several gunshot wounds in the attack, and the motive for the attack is unknown. After being wounded in the back, he was transferred first to the hospital in Šabac and then immediately to the Military Medical Academy (MMA) in Belgrade (this detail is important, we will come back to it).
For attempted murder, only a day and a half later, UM (32) and MM (32), both from Uba, were arrested, so it is no exaggeration to say that the police earned their salary in that case. Maybe someone who deals with it will investigate why that service is not equally effective in some other cases, but we will only state those facts on the record and immediately move on to Ostojić's biography.
WHO IS MILAN OSTOJIĆ SANDOKAN?
Ostojić was regarded by the professional public as a person who played one of the main roles in the criminal "Sabačka group", which in many cases was associated with drug trafficking, robberies, car thefts and murders.
The media report that in the White Book of Organized Crime, which was compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs after the democratic changes in 2000, he was first mentioned as a member of a criminal organization from Šabac headed by Uglješa Arnitović and whose members had "businesses" branching from Belgrade through Republika Srpska to Montenegro.
In 2013, Ostojić was convicted of inciting the murder of a certain Siniša Kromek, while he was acquitted of charges of criminal association and drug trafficking. Although he was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison, an appeal cut his sentence in half, and he ended up serving five years and was released in 2018.
He came into the public spotlight because he was talked about by the then mayor of Šabac, Nebojša Zelenović, who a few years ago labeled Ostojić as a person who, by "sowing fear", ensures that no capillary voice is lost to the progressives of Šabac.
Zelenović now tells "Vreme" that Ostojić is one of the most influential people of the SNS from the gray zone in Šabac and that in that city no personnel appointment in the municipality or public enterprises can be done without him. He also claims that Ostojić has an influence on the work of other bodies, and that the SNS in Šabac could not have won any elections in the last few years if he and his team had not previously "prepared" the elections and voting day.
"The fact is that Sandokan, like other actors of political life with a criminal history, is under the mentorship of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. If it weren't for him, SNS would not have managed to secure a victory in any election since 2018, when he was released from prison. There is a serious influence of Ostojić on political life in Šabac," asserts Zelenović.
Unlike Aleksandar Nešović Baja, who was connected to the SNS indirectly, through his wife who with her sister ran an agency that hired people for the SNS call center before the elections, Ostojić's connection with the ruling party was much more direct and brutal.
Eyewitnesses claim that he organized and led a group of thugs who attacked the blockaded citizens on the bridge in Šabac in November 2023. They then attacked the people with an excavator and poles, but the attack was stopped by one of the citizens who climbed onto the vehicle and neutralized the driver with his fists.
Recently, the media published photos of Ostojić staying in the so-called Ćaciland, and in one of the pictures he was in the tent where the deputy of the government, Uglješa Mrdić, was on strike in front of the parliament (God knows why).
Ostojić's last public activity before his injury was observed on May 19, when he entered into a verbal conflict with the gathered citizens near Belgrade's Slavija Square, after which he confronted an unusually brave student, who apparently did not know who was in front of him.
The student later received threats, and he was also informed that Ostojić allegedly offered money to his associates to help him find that student. The case was also reported to the police, but the public did not receive any information on how far it went.
Unlike that case, which did not receive a court epilogue, Ostojić's lawsuit against Zelenović from 2020 ended negatively for the defendant, who was sentenced to pay 100.000 dinars for damage to reputation and honor.
"In that civil proceeding, I am obliged to pay 100.000 dinars, because the court decided that I caused him mental pain. Namely, at a press conference I listed the proceedings and judgments that were pronounced against him. That's how it is," Zelenović recently said in a statement to the newspaper "Danas".
photo: мупSPEEDY ARREST: Suspects for wounding Ostojić
THE GOVERNMENT LOST CONTROL
"Vremen" interlocutors familiar with the issue of the criminal scene agree that the increasingly frequent attacks whose victims are people close to SNS indicate that the government has lost control over criminal clans.
Lawyer Ivan Ninić told "Vreme" that the wounding of Ostojić was not an isolated incident and a bar prank, but a logical consequence of the metastasis of a system in which the line between the executive power and organized crime has been completely erased.
"When the state uses legally convicted heads of criminal groups for dirty field affairs for years, from suppressing protests and intimidating citizens on the streets to the capillary squeezing of votes for Šabac, it consciously assumes the role of their guarantor of security. However, that security is only an illusion. The fact that recently the victims of mafia confrontations are more often people close to the ruling structure does not testify that the government is losing its authority, but that it is losing control over the Frankenstein it created," he said.
Ninic added that nervousness is growing within those structures because some feel that they are not paid as much as they deserve, so they are trying to pay the difference themselves.
"And they themselves see that this progressive Titanic is sinking. A system without control has been created. When you give criminals resources, logistics, para-genderie roles and immunity from criminal prosecution, you actually destroy institutions. Then when money, influence or unfulfilled promises are spilled within that cartel, conflicts are no longer resolved in institutions, because they do not exist, but on the asphalt. On the other hand, the cinematic speed of the police in arresting the Sandokan attackers is a clear message from the regime that an attack on their it treats field raiders as a direct attack on the state itself, while ordinary citizens and activists remain completely unprotected", Ninic added.
Uglješa Bokić, a journalist from the newspaper "Danas" and a former police inspector, told "Vreme" that the authorities are very wrong when they believe that they are able to control the crime scene.
"I wouldn't say that the government has lost its authority with criminals, I think it has lost control, because there are too many of them. The government has appropriated crime and there is no one in those structures who is not connected to the regime in some way. Since that is already the case, then there is a conflict of interest that the criminals resolve in this way. They don't know any other way," said Bokić.
Bokić added that the fact that Ostojić was transferred to the VMA in Belgrade after being injured shows that he is very important to the authorities, because it is a treatment that not everyone can count on.
"However, the government is wrong when it thinks it can control criminals. And that's why it can be expected that there will be more situations like this. When crime itself is under one roof, it can't end any other way," he believes.
Speaking about claims in the public that the increase in criminal activities in the Serbian underground is reminiscent of what happened in the last year of the reign of the former president of the FRY, Slobodan Milošević, Bokić said that there are some similarities, and that the biggest one is that even then all prominent criminals had some connection with the then authorities.
And lawyer Ninić believes that the parallel with that period is "completely justified and historically accurate": "Then, as well as today, we witnessed a phenomenon in which the underground began to devour itself because the economic and political base of the regime began to crack. Crime is always a litmus test for social changes. When the mafia feels that political patrons are weakening and that the pressure of the public and citizens on the streets is increasing and that the social climate is changing, there is panic in those circles, and this panic is always measured by numbers "What we are seeing today is the late, terminal phase of any autocratic regime that has made a pact with the devil. When the state becomes the biggest employer of the underworld, then the street becomes the only court, and Sandokan's wounding is the crowning proof that that tower of cards is seriously collapsing."
The fact that in this situation the history of the dismal nineties may be repeating itself does not mean that the public is clear about what could be the motives for the increase in criminal activities. In the past few months, many bars and rafts whose owners were linked to the establishment were burning in Belgrade, and the perpetrators were mostly not caught, nor did the police announce the motive of those attacks.
The hope remains that we will not have to wait again for one of the fugitive Montenegrin or convicted Serbian criminals to contact us via YouTube and explain who shot Ostojić and why, given that they obviously understand these matters much better than the domestic judiciary, prosecutor's office and police.
