Monday, July 17, 2000

All President's (Dead) Men

Radojica Nikcevic (1948-1993)

The assassination of Radojica Nikcevic was the first in the series of unsolved murders of businessmen close to Slobodan Milosevic. Before this case, those who were murdered in the streets of Belgrade had belonged to the underworld from the beginning of their careers. Radojica on the other hand was one of the nouveau riche class of war profiteers. That group of people, with the help of their influential political connections, accumulated fortunes amounting to tens of millions of US dollars. A short time before he was killed, Nikcevic himself claimed that he was worth 50 million DM (US$25 million). He liked to flaunt his success - to this end he wore a valuable diamond ring and a Rolex inlaid with diamonds.

Radojica Nikcevic was born 1948 in Belgrade. He was of Montenegrin descent - his family was originally from Niksic (a town in Montenegro). He made great use of the fact in his career, but he also knew how to repay his fellow-Montenegrins for their favors. Commenting on the great solidarity among the Montenegrins, he said: "The fact that the Montenegrins stick together is a privilege of a minority. Why do the Italians in America hang together? Because they are in the minority there, just like the Montenegrins in Belgrade."

Sumadija

After finishing a two year course at the School of Economics, Nikcevic got a job in the JIK Bank (Yugoslav Export and Credit Bank) where he later became on of the managers. He left the bank to become the supervising manager of the housing cooperative Sumadija, which was facing liquidation at the time.

Never losing a moment, Nikcevic secured new locations and new jobs for Sumadija in Senjak and Dedinje, Belgrade's elite neighborhoods. The central office of the firm was soon moved from the wooden building in Svetozara Markovica Street to a new office building - at the time probably the finest in Belgrade - in Topcider (an elite neighborhood in Belgrade). Many high police officials, as well as Milorad Vucelic, the 90s director of RTS (pro-government national TV station), obtained apartments through Sumadija.

In 1990 Nikcevic launched Radio Pingvin, the first private radio station in Belgrade. It did not take him long to secure the rooms and the necessary equipment. He procured all necessary permits and a radio frequency, which are very difficult to obtain in Serbia - so much so that, for example, up to the moment it was taken over by the government at the beginning of the NATO bombing, Radio B92, strongly opposition-oriented, had to rent its frequency from RTS. Nikcevic hired a group of very talented young people who turned Radio Pingvin into the radio station with the biggest number of listeners in Belgrade. The programs they made were markedly apolitical, with a lot of music, a lot of audience participation and contests.

A letter to the biweekly Belgrade magazine Duga from the members of the housing cooperative proves that everything was not all right with the way the business was conducted in that firm. The letter was sent in the summer of 1993, immediately after this magazine had published an interview with Nikcevic. In this interview, Nikcevic blamed the authorities for the rise of war profiteering and crime in Serbia, claiming that no one could be involved in a big business or black marketing without the knowledge and the consent of the authorities: "Confronting war profiteers will be a political as well as economic necessity in Serbia. The gentlemen who have plundered Serbia - I don't know exactly how much each one has taken, I just know that it amounts to billions of dollars - will have to pay for it."

The unsigned letter from the cooperative members came as a reaction to this interview. In the letter they expressed shock at the text of the interview according to which their manager condemned crime. They also claimed that "for several years now there have been criminal proceedings against Radojica Nikcevic over an illegal credit for an apartment bought from Sumadija" and that the legal action was conducted so efficiently that the prosecuting attorney had resigned and become a lawyer. They accused him of using his unlimited power for manipulations and stealing the property of the five thousand cooperation members. "In our estimation, the fraud in progress concerns the sum of 50 to 100 million DM (US$ 25 to 50 million) of cooperative property which will pass into private hands." They enclosed the list of Nikcevic's possessions: luxuriously decorated offices in Topcider (400m2 of marble, glass, mosaic, fountains, and paintings), apartments, unsold flats, Radio Pingvin, a building in Brankova Street (in the very center of Belgrade). The last item on the list of his possessions was: "the workers of the housing cooperative Sumadija, since we feel we have been turned into slaves a long time ago."

The letters goes on to say that books could be written about Radojica Nikcevic. "The following examples will show just what kind of person he is. He claims that he has no political affiliations but at the same time he has handed out SPS (Socialist Party of Serbia) membership application forms in the firm, pressing us to join that party. Meanwhile, his chief building contractor was the person who now has close links with the SPO (Serbian Renewal Movement) (they meant Dragoljub Milicic, the owner of the Invest-Import Company). At the same time he got a special gun for General Spirkovski, so that the man could go hunting, although the war was raging in Vukovar (a Croatian town on the river Danube); he attended Giska's funeral..."(Djordje Bozovic Giska had been the commander of the Serbian Guard).

Association with Giovanni Di Stefano

Giovanni Di Stefano was the first of a number of scoundrels from abroad who sensed that Serbia was the promised land for their machinations. He was followed by a succession of phony businessmen, pseudo-philosophers and scribblers. Naturally, they were all "hopelessly in love with Serbia".

Although he was passed off in Yugoslavia as the owner of the MGM film company, of the United Artist, an airline in Austria, a chain of 80 cinemas in Colombia, Di Stefano was actually an impostor who had served a time in England for an attempt to set up a bank without initial investment, and he had also been prosecuted for importing video tapes from Hong Kong. Actually, there was a link between the owner of a small Austrian airline and him - according to the reports in Austrian newspapers, Di Stefano swindled the man out of several hundred thousand Austrian shillings.

Radojica Nikcevic met this rare bird in a French castle in 1992. Several weeks later, Di Stefano arrived in Belgrade and Yugoslavia, in his words "a land of vast possibilities".

In January 1993, Di Stefano traveled to Bogota and Radojica Nikcevic accompanied him in his plane. Di Stefano explained that the reason for this visit to Colombia was to set the business of the Cine Colombia Company in order. He also told stories about buying the state-owned Banco Di Colombia. Nikcevic, on the other hand, said that the aim of the visit was the purchase of a chain of hotels in that country. Contrary to these explanations, there is a rumor circulating in Belgrade that Nikcevic controlled the drug traffic and that he went to Colombia on that business, in order to make contact with the Medellin cartel, whose head at the time was Pablo Escobar.

Dragan Mladenovic, an ex- police officer in Belgrade, claims that MUP (Serbian Ministry of the Interior) operates the traffic in drugs and that Radojica Nikcevic was in that line of business. He claims that Nikcevic was assassinated because he started to talk too much by men brought from abroad especially for this job. This story attracted further attention when Nikcevic's obituary signed by Pablo Escobar appeared in Belgrade newspapers. In response to these allegations, Di Stefano said: "Suppose we did meet him (i.e. Escobar). Why should we bring drugs to Yugoslavia all the way from South America when Turkey is much closer? Why should we need Escobar for this?"

Assassination

Radojica Nikcevic was assassinated on October 7, 1993 at 8.15 in the morning at 54, Vase Pelagica Street, some 20 meters far from the entrance to the First Belgrade Housing Cooperative Sumadija. He had come out of a huge company Mercedes and was walking towards the entrance. The assassin and his assistant, wearing workers' uniforms, were approaching him. After he had passed Nikcevic, the assassin fired two shots from a .44 caliber gun into the back of the victim's head. Then with his assistant he walked slowly to a Yugo, which was waiting for him. That car was later found in a nearby dead-end street, and it was discovered that it had been stolen.

Who is the assassin?

There are several stories explaining who murdered Radojica Nikcevic. According to one of them, Nikcevic had deposited a lot of money in the Jugoskandik "bank" belonging to Jezdimir Vasiljevic. Since Master Jezda (as Vasiljevic is generally known) had done Nikcevic, as well as George Stankovic and Nebojsa Salatic, out of several million DM each, they decided to do him in, unless he returned their money. It is even believed that they are connected with the abduction of Master Jezda's family in Italy. According to this story, Master Jezda was quicker and managed to eliminate every one of them in a short time.

According to another story, Nikcevic messed something up in the drug business and therefore had to go. Yet another story has it that the interview for the Duga magazine cost him his life. Some think that his death is connected with the taking over of the men of Djordje Bozovic Giska, Commander of the Serbian Guard, as well as with the funding of the SPO.

One thing is certain - Radojica Nikcevic had connections with the regime as well as with the opposition in Serbia, with the police as well as with people on the other side of the law. He was friends with Radoman Bozovic (Serbian minister for a while, after that president of federal parliament), Milo Djukanovic (President of Montenegro), former Head of the Yugoslav Army General Staff Zivota Panic, the late criminal Aleksandar Knezevic Knele (whom he took from prison in the spring of 1992 and sent to crush student demonstrations), the late head of the Vozdovac gang Goran "Monkey" Vukovic (Vozdovac is a part of Belgrade), etc. At one moment he bragged that he did not know which secret service - federal, Serbian or Montenegrin - he worked for any more. Perhaps it was this that cost him his life.

All Nikcevic's assets and companies were inherited by Giovanni Di Stefano, who claimed that it had been the wish of his blood brother.

Trivia

For a long time now, the public in Serbia has been occupied with a peculiar hit list, containing the names of influential people, most of them of political or mafia backgrounds. Boza Spasic, formerly employed with MUP and now very close to the SPO, once said that this hit list had first been mentioned to him by Radojica Nikcevic, and that he later receive confirmation from Australia, where a TV station broadcast the contents of the list.

All the President's (Dead)Men