Lalic on Miljkovic: I only hang out with corpses

Cooperating witness Srdjan Lalic resumed his testimony on Wednesday before the Organised Crime Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade, in the case against Veljko Belivuk, Marko Miljkovic and other defendants. The hearing turned on two things: footage from the concealed room uncovered at the house in Ritopek, and the electronic communication the prosecution has entered into evidence.

Lalic read out to the trial chamber the exchanges he says he had with fugitive Radoje Zvicer. According to his account, those messages covered truck transports and included photographs sent back and forth. Lalic told the court he recognises the content of the messages and that the communication is authentic, a central point for prosecutor Sasa Ivanic, since much of the indictment rests on that material.

The line that drew most attention in the courtroom was one Lalic attributed to Marko Miljkovic: “Brother, I’m going mad here, I only hang out with corpses.” Miljkovic reacted at once and denied saying or writing anything of the sort. His defence maintains that the cooperating witness’s account is a construction assembled with the prosecution.

Why is a cooperating witness’s account so contested here?

Lalic is one of three cooperating witnesses in the proceedings, alongside Bojan Hrvatin and Nikola Spasojevic. He reached a plea agreement with the Organised Crime Prosecutor’s Office under which he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. That agreement is both the legal basis of his standing in court and the defence’s most frequent target.

Defence lawyer Dejan Lazarevic again pressed on the consistency of Lalic’s account during this hearing. The reasoning is familiar and legitimate: a witness who has negotiated his own sentence has an interest in confirming the prosecution’s version of events. For that reason the court does not treat a cooperating witness’s account as settled proof, but tests it against material that exists independently of him, in this case the footage and the electronic communication.

That is also why this hearing matters more than a routine continuation of testimony. The court reviewed footage from the concealed room uncovered in Ritopek, a location the indictment identifies as central to part of the offences attributed to the group. Where the video and the messages line up with what the witness says, his account gains weight. Where they diverge, it loses it.

What the indictment covers

The indictment by the Organised Crime Prosecutor’s Office charges Veljko Belivuk, Marko Miljkovic and the other defendants with forming a criminal group, several aggravated murders, abductions and further offences. The proceedings have run for years, with a long list of witnesses, extensive forensic reports and months-long gaps in the evidentiary phase.

None of the defendants has been convicted by a final judgment. Everything presented in the courtroom so far, including Lalic’s testimony on Wednesday, is evidentiary material the chamber has yet to rule on. Miljkovic’s denial forms part of that record too, and the court will weigh it alongside the rest.

The trial continues and Lalic’s examination is not finished. The defence has signalled further questions about the circumstances in which the plea agreement was reached and about how the witness came by the knowledge he is presenting.

How much weight, in your view, should a cooperating witness who negotiated his own sentence carry in a trial over the gravest criminal offences?