The interior ministry did not answer the union. Nor did it respond to a request for an interview on the matter with Hrkalovic.

The union’s tip-off was not the first time Vuckovic had been connected to Sreckovic and a suspicious Audi.

In 2013, when “Sale the Mute” Stankovic was making his power grab, Sreckovic was suspected of involvement in smashing up the Hollywood café and restaurant, a Belgrade business owned by a rival who led the Alcatraz fan group.

According to a police report seen by BIRN, security cameras caught Sreckovic standing outside on the pavement while men identified as Janjicari thugs went to work inside, breaking furniture and shattering glass.

Sreckovic used an Audi as a getaway car and proceeded to the Pioneer Hall, an indoor sports arena in Belgrade’s Palilula district. According to the police report, he met a man there and handed him the keys of the car.

That man was Vuckovic, the report said.

Police later arrested Sreckovic on suspicion of taking part in the Hollywood café incident but charges were dropped after he paid a fine of around 330 euros, court records show.

No charges were brought against Vuckovic, who was still in the military at the time. (He did not transfer to the Gendarmerie until two-and-a-half years later.)

BIRN can reveal that Sreckovic and Vuckovic were both in the military at the same time and in the very same Special Brigade. Sreckovic left the military two days before the Hollywood café was ransacked.

Nikolajev, the owner of Fort Security thought to have employed Sreckovic at Tilt nightclub, also appears to have served in that brigade. A photo posted on Nikolajev’s Facebook timeline in September 2011 shows him wearing the unit’s distinctive red beret bearing the unit’s crest.



Svetislav Nikolajev stands third from the left in a September 2011 Facebook post.

The defence ministry confirmed that Sreckovic served in the elite force between December 2010 and December 2013. It said he passed security screening before joining.

However, the ministry denied that Nikolajev served in the unit.

Whether or not any of the men had criminal connections before enlisting in the military, Djordjevic from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy said authorities have a poor track record of weeding out security threats.

“In the last six years [since the Progressives came to power], there’s been this trend of turning a blind eye among institutions whenever evidence [of criminal connections] is revealed,” he said.

“This leads to the question: if they’re ignoring one case, are they doing the same thing in other cases? Do they actually take care that the people employed by those institutions are clean?”

That question is all too real for family and friends of clubgoer Vukic as they await justice.

Tadic, the man accused of dealing the killer blow, was working as a private security guard at public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia until he was placed in custody for his drug-dealing trial.

In trial that started in March, Tadic faces drug-dealing charges, which he denies. During a hearing in this trial in April, his lawyer claimed that Tadic had also worked at the office of Nedic, secretary-general of the government.

Asked about this by KRIK, Nedic’s office said it had never hired Tadic. A week later, his lawyer told KRIK there had been a misunderstanding between him and his client.

On April 12, Tadic was released from prison and placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring.

However, his fiancee has posted numerous photos and video on social media showing him outside his apartment — and even driving a car. In one picture, Tadic stands in an elevator with his hands in the pockets of his tracksuit top, smiling, while his fiancee pouts at the camera.

Dubious Friends The grass was still muddy at the stadium in the southwestern Russian city of Samara when scandal eclipsed the euphoria of Serbia’s win over Costa Rica in the group stage of the World Cup in July 2018. Photos had emerged of Danilo Vucic, the 20-year-old son of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, celebrating in the stands with three men identified by media as notorious hooligans with violent rap sheets: Milan Krasic, Boris Karapandzic and Aleksandar Vidojevic. Krasic was sentenced in May 2018 to 14 years in prison for murder — though he appealed and was clearly able to travel to Russia. In May 2019, the appeal court acquitted him and he is now a free man. According to media reports, Vidojevic had been prosecuted for brawling in the stands, robbery and gun possession. Karapandzic was sentenced in 2016 to four years in jail for drug dealing, gun possession and violent behaviour — though he was granted parole in March 2017. Vidojevic and Karapandzic were subsequently indicted for smashing up a nightclub right next door to Tilt, in October 2018. A fourth man with them in the stands, Nemanja Sreckovic (no relation of Velibor Sreckovic), had been, along with Vidojevic, an official representative of fans at Partizan FC’s governing body in 2016. All four are widely known as Janjicari members. Hugging and cheering in Russia, Vucic Jr and his companions wore T-shirts emblazoned with a map of Kosovo and the words “No surrender” — a battlecry of Serbian nationalist opposition to Kosovo independence. Asked about the company his son kept, President Vucic said it pained him to have to explain to Vucic Jr why journalists were criticising him just because he supported Serbia. “My son has never done anything wrong,” he told reporters.

Danilo Vucic, seen holding up three fingers sixth from the left, attends a football match in Russia with alleged Janjicari members during the 2018 World Cup. Photo: Screenshot from online footage of the game

Ivana Jeremic is a Serbian investigative reporter. This article was produced as part of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, supported by the ERSTE Foundation, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Editing by Timothy Large.