Nebojsa Stefanovic (BETAPHOTO/DEFENSE MMINISTRY/MO)
Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said on July 17 that the Antonov 12 aircraft that crashed in northern Greece had been carrying 11.5 tons of munitions produced by the Serbian military contracting industry to Bangladesh, and that eight members of the crew had died in the crash.
Stefanovic told a news conference that the plane belonging to the Ukrainian Meridian LTD company, took off in Nis around 8:40 p.m. on July 16, carrying a load of munitions produced by the Serbian outfit Valir for the Ministry of Defense of Bangladesh, and was scheduled to land in Dhaka after stopovers in Amman, Riyadh and Ahmedabad.
"This airplane had all of the required licenses, everything was in line with international regulations," Stefanovic said, adding that media reports that the flight was transporting armaments from Serbia to Ukraine were untrue, describing the claims as malicious and false.
He stressed that Serbia would continue to export weaponry exclusively in line with international regulations, noting that last year the country had agreements to export arms to the tune of a little over a billion dollars, while some USD500 million had been realized.
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