Vucic: I Never Even Considered Declaring a State of Emergency

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/PREDSEDNISTVO SRBIJE/DIMITRIJE GOLL/MO)

President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic said on Aug. 4 that “declaring a state of emergency was never an option, not for a second” and added this avenue is of no interest to him.

While touring construction progress of the Slepcevic-Badovinci freeway, Vucic stated that while the former regimes readily resorted to this measure, his government “openly give[s] more than usual civil rights and freedoms and will continue to do so.”

According to Vucic, “interconnected prosecutorial and judicial forces” expedited the preliminary hearing of the group including former trade minister Tomislav Momirovic, arrested on Aug. 1, to ensure the presiding judge was ‘one of their own’ and would assign detention.

“They were in a hurry, they struck a deal. This is part of that interconnected, not to say mafia-like structure, but interconnected prosecutorial and judicial forces, because they knew they had to get it done on [Aug. 1] so that the preliminary hearing judge was one of theirs and would order detention,” the president claimed.

Momirovic and a number of his associates were taken into police custody on Aug. 1, sans former construction, transportation and infrastructure minister Goran Vesic, who is allegedly in hospital. The group – suspected of having embezzled over USD115 million from the state – have been assigned 30-day jail detention.