The news of the connection between the UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin and the president of the Football Association of Serbia, Slaviša Kokeza, has caused quite a stir in the Serbian media. In Serbia, where the local police work hard to expose the crimes of the mafia and arrest its members, a news item found its way to the front page, entitled: “UEFA president’s friendship with Slaviša Kokeza could cost him his position.” Serbian web portal Kurir (courier), referring to the recent report by Nova24TV, states that shocking information about Kokeza, a friend and close associate of the UEFA president, has come to light.
“News from Belgrade seem like a new problem for Aleksander Čeferin’s presidency,” Kurir reports, adding that the news which reveals that a lawyer from the Čeferin firm defended the infamous drug king, indicates that the UEFA president is closely connected with the Balkan mafia area, and not just anyone from the mafia. “We have previously already written about the suspicious dealings of Čeferin and Davor Šuker, president of the Croatian Football Federation, and now it is Slaviša Kokeza’s turn. All three are influential members of the UEFA. The Balkan mafia underground reaches to the very top of the European Football Association, which is really astonishing,” they wrote, citing Nova24TV. They added that the whole thing is even worse, given the connection between Kokeza and one of the biggest Serbian criminals, Veljko Belivuk.
The news in question was published on the front page of the Serbian media outlets, in light of recent interesting developments in the country. In Serbia, an affair involving the head of the mafia cartel within the Partizan fan group Grobari, Veljko Belivuk, also known as Velja Nevolja, is currently causing quite a stir. Nevolja and some of his criminal associates brutally tortured their victims and cut their dead bodies up on the premises of the Partizan football club. The latest information from Serbia indicates that Kokeza was detained and interrogated for allegedly planning the assassination of the Serbian president Aleksander Vučić. He allegedly refused to take a lie detector test, which raises strong suspicions.
Vučić said that he was shocked to hear that Kokeza was being interrogated, as they have known each other for many years. He claimed that he does not understand why Kokeza decided to refuse to take the lie detector test. Vučić finds all of this even more shocking because he trusted Kokeza. At the same time, Vučić emphasised that he simply cannot believe that Kokeza was, in fact, involved in planning his assassination. The president added that he had never threatened Kokeza nor his relatives.
Kokeza refused to take a lie detector test
According to Dnevni avaz, when Kokeza was asked why he did not want to take the lie detector test, he responded that the president of the Belgrade High Court, Aleksandar Stepanović himself, has advised him not to take it. During the interrogation, which lasted as long as four hours, he was even offered the option of only answering the questions he was willing to answer. Nevertheless, for each question, he refused to actually take the lie detector test. Kokeza is far from being the only one who does not want to take the lie detector test, as the former State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, Dijana Hrkalović, also refused to take it. According to the web portal Ekspres, she was questioned due to the alleged connections with the criminals Darko Elez and Veljko Belivuk himself. Elez is a Bosnian criminal who has already been convicted in Serbia and is now awaiting the final decision on his extradition to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Belivuk, however, was arrested on suspicion of organising a criminal group that was involved in the most serious forms of crime under the auspices of a fan group. According to Kurir, this was not the first time that Hrkalović has refused to take a lie detector test. Namely, she also refused it when she was being questioned about the illegal wiretapping of the Serbian president Vučić and his family, as well as some senior state officials.
Vučić predicts that shocking information will come to light
What we know so far is that the police have found several clues, indicating that Nevolja’s group tortured and brutally killed people with whom it was in conflict. As Serbian president Vučić already said, new information will supposedly soon come to light, which will not only shock Serbia but the entire world, as he will show the public something really horrible in relation to the Nevolje group.
In November of last year, the well-known Serbian journalist Željko Pantič already revealed part of the affair and said that “the Balkan part of UEFA will have to be torn down, as UEFA is filled with staff who crawled there straight from the Balkan mafia swamps.” In light of the fact that a lawyer from the Čeferin law firm defended the infamous drug lord Dragan Tocić, it is worth mentioning Tosić’s close business partner Anastazij Martinčič, who publicly stated that in the Balkan Warrior case, there were at least 20 million euros in bribes involved.
Sara Kovač