Milenkovic Permanently Transferred Out of Criminal Police
The inspector who exposed the Jovanjica marijuana plantation has been reassigned to the Interior Ministry's IT Sector after nearly 20 years in criminal police, and his lawyers vow every legal remedy.
Slobodan Milenkovic, the police inspector who exposed the marijuana plantation on the Jovanjica estate, has been permanently transferred out of the Criminal Police Directorate and into the Interior Ministry’s IT Sector. The Tomanovic Law Office, which represents Milenkovic, announced the decision on August 10, 2026.
The firm says the transfer comes after nearly 20 years of Milenkovic’s service in criminal police, and that no explanation grounded in fact or law was offered for the decision. The statements released that day contain no position from the Ministry of Interior on the reasoning behind the personnel move.
“The persistence of Milenkovic, together with Mitic and other uncorrupted police officers, in pushing to fully expose the financial, legal, security and organizational logistics that made the ‘Jovanjica’ project possible has so far produced a strong, coordinated media and political campaign aimed at degrading the inspector professionally and personally. That campaign has resulted in dismissals and reassignments, and even in threats to the lives of inspectors Milenkovic and Mitic, who are now protected by members of special anti-terrorist units,” the lawyers’ statement reads.
The lawyers described the transfer as “another legal and political jolt from centers of power that, in a climate of political schizophrenia, are waging a campaign against professionalism and independence within state institutions, and against facts and truth itself, in an attempt to manufacture and sustain a fabricated reality.”
What led to the transfer?
Until 2023, Milenkovic headed the Belgrade police department for combating drugs, known as the Fourth Department. That year he was removed from the post, along with inspector Dusan Mitic, who lost his position as head of operations. Under a formal decision by the Interior Ministry’s Cabinet, both men were reassigned to other posts outside the narcotics department.
In early September 2023, they were placed under police protection. The Police Directorate said at the time that, based on their own statements and at their own insistence, they had been temporarily assigned protection from the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit pending completion of a threat assessment. They had earlier been offered protection from the Unit for the Protection of Certain Persons and Facilities, which they turned down.
Media also reported at the time that, a year earlier, Milenkovic had filed an official memo stating that Vladimir Djukanovic and Aleksandar Papic, the former owner of the tabloid Objektiv, had offered him money and a promotion if he dropped the Jovanjica case. According to that memo, the offer was relayed through an intermediary who said the two men were negotiating on behalf of President Aleksandar Vucic.
Two courts, no ruling
The lawyers say two proceedings filed on Milenkovic’s behalf have stalled for years. According to them, the Administrative Court has gone nearly three years without ruling on his lawsuit over his removal as department head, while the Constitutional Court has gone more than three and a half years without deciding a case concerning the right to life and the state’s responsibility for threats to his safety.
“Every available legal remedy will be used to protect inspector Milenkovic’s rights, regardless of the indifference of institutions such as the Administrative Court, which has failed to rule for nearly three years in the case of his dismissal, or the Constitutional Court, which for more than three and a half years has not decided on the right to life and the state’s responsibility for the threats to Milenkovic’s life,” the law office representing him said.
No deadline was given for when the courts must rule, nor was a date set for when an appeal against the transfer would be filed.
Opposition sees the move as a message to police
Marinika Tepic, deputy leader of the Party of Freedom and Justice, reacted to the transfer the same day. She said it amounted to continued retaliation against a police officer who, according to the indictment, uncovered the largest marijuana plantation in Europe.
“This decision looks like personal revenge by the Vucic brothers against a man who exposed crime directly tied to their closest associates and to parts of the police and army, and whom they have spent years trying to neutralize by obstructing court proceedings and applying every possible pressure on police and the judiciary,” Tepic said.
She said the message was aimed at the entire police force: “don’t touch crime tied to those in power if you want to keep your job and your career.” She added that, in her view, people willing to do their jobs by the book are being pushed out of the police, with loyalists put in their place.
The transfer lands at a moment when the top ranks of the Interior Ministry are already at the center of public debate. Srpske Novine has previously reported on how the Senjak case escalated into a conflict at the top of the police leadership, and Milenkovic’s departure from the Criminal Police Directorate is a new personnel decision within the same ministry, this time issued without a public explanation.
