Serbia’s Interior Ministry (MUP) has still not provided prosecutors with encrypted “Sky” messages belonging to former Football Association of Serbia president Slaviša Kokeza, despite a formal request made more than a month ago, according to the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office.
The messages reportedly contain evidence that Kokeza planned an attack against former Serbian football star Nemanja Vidić. The Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to Danas that it requested the correspondence from the Interior Ministry shortly after the investigative outlet KRIK published excerpts from the messages in late June.
More than a month later, prosecutors say they have received no response from the MUP.
The prosecutor’s office subsequently contacted Interior Minister Ivica Dačić and Police Director Dragan Vasiljević over the ministry’s failure to respond. According to prosecutors, neither official has provided an answer.
KRIK reported in June that “Sky” communications showed Kokeza allegedly contacting members of the criminal underworld and seeking assistance in threatening and physically attacking Vidić in 2020, when Kokeza was president of the Football Association of Serbia.
According to the reported messages, the alleged plot followed a public letter by Vidić criticizing the leadership and work of the Serbian football federation. Kokeza reportedly feared that Vidić’s criticism could prompt President Aleksandar Vučić to demand his resignation and potentially support Vidić taking over the federation.
The correspondence also reportedly showed Kokeza communicating with several Red Star Belgrade supporters and seeking their assistance in lobbying Vučić on his behalf. The messages allegedly included indirect contact with notorious Serbian organized crime figure Veljko Belivuk.
The reported exchanges also described tensions between Kokeza and Vučić’s brother, Andrej Vučić, with Kokeza allegedly saying he did not want to act as his “errand boy.”
According to the published correspondence, Kokeza also claimed that Vučić had met with Red Star supporters and that, during one meeting, the president showed a representative of the club’s Delije supporters, Stevan Sojić, conversations that had allegedly been intercepted by police.
The failure of the Interior Ministry to respond to the prosecutors’ request has raised further questions over the handling of potentially significant evidence in a case involving allegations of threats, organized crime and political connections.
The reported messages have not, by themselves, established that an attack was carried out or that every allegation contained in the correspondence is true. Their evidentiary significance is now part of a matter that prosecutors have formally sought to investigate.
