Vucic Claims Has Been Wiretapped for 24 Years

Vucic(BETA/SASA DJORDJEVIC)

President Aleksandar Vucic on Aug. 1 said that he had been de facto “with certain hiatuses,” wiretapped for 24 years and also kept under watch.

Speaking in a program on TV Pink, Vucic said he was proud that surveillance reports and analyses never proved any activity that could have caused harm to Serbia.

According to Vucic, he was put under watch by the decision of the former Serbian Security Service chief, Jovica Stanisic, in December 1995, marked as a person striving to undermine the constitutional order, and accused of attempting to set up paramilitary forces within the Serbian Radical Party, together with then Radicals’ top officials, Vojislav Seselj and Tomislav Nikolic, with the aim of assuming power.

Vucic went on to say that wiretapping ended on Dec. 13, 2000, only to be restored during the state of emergency introduced after the assassination of Zoran Djindjic. “Then the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) chief, without a court order, decided to put a wiretap on my phone over my alleged connections with the underground. More than half of my “criminal” connections involved phone talks with Bojan Pajtiic, while my key connection was with Seselj, who instructed me about issuing a release regarding allegations of his ties with criminals,” Vucic explained.

In his words, after the state of emergency was lifted, wiretapping continued of his communication with diplomatic representatives, among whom was then fiancé of his current media advisor Suzana Vasiljevic, who worked with the French Embassy, and also of the ties he then maintained with incumbent Serbian Chamber of Commerce President Marko Cadez, who worked with the German Embassy at the time.

He added that while serving as the intelligence service coordinator, “the calls recorded through wiretaps were never made public.”

Vucic confirmed certain media reports were true about his two (of three) children being placed under watch, noting that “certain persons” had been following his daughter. Vucic also said he had knowledge that some agents of certain foreign intelligence services were taking photos of his son at his work place, where he “works as just an employee for a monthly pay of EUR500.”

Vucic also stressed he would not allow the opposition to prevent the holding of the next elections, describing such attempts as one of the gravest criminal offences.

“That’s not going to happen,” Vucic stressed.