Marjanovic claims Barac paid him cash for Cacilend

Momcilo Marjanovic, a 54-year-old from Novi Sad who says he was an SNS activist for more than ten years, claims he led groups of men to the camp in Pionirski Park in front of the Serbian Presidency, known as Cacilend, and that he was paid in cash for it by Nenad Barac, director of the public utility Novosadska Toplana. He made the claims in a video interview that BIRN published on October 13.

Asked by BIRN about the payments, Barac declined to answer, asked where the journalists got the information and ended the conversation. The published reports on the interview contain no response from the SNS or from prosecutors.

Who is Momcilo Marjanovic and what role does he describe?

Marjanovic was born in Kikinda and has lived in Novi Sad since his student days. He worked in security and, as he puts it, joined the party about ten years ago. Nova.rs calls him a former SNS member in its report, while N1 describes him in its headline as a party member. He says his job began to change after the Novi Sad canopy collapse on November 1, 2024, when the tasks grew more violent.

He described his role this way:

“My role was to lead a team of guys to the riskiest and most critical places, such as ‘Cacilend’.”

Marjanovic claims he was among those he led on March 15, 2025, the day of the large student protest in Belgrade, and admits that force was used. His account implies that the group he assembled stayed in the park for more than two weeks.

How much was paid and who handed over the money?

For staying in Cacilend, he says, he received 500 euros a day, and the men he led got 200 euros each. He claims he received instructions and cash from Nenad Barac, either in his office in the company’s administrative building or through his secretary. Of Barac, he said:

“I took money directly from him and paid the guys I led, both in Cacilend and on the walks and at the rallies.”

Marjanovic estimates that since the canopy collapse he personally carried between 350,000 and 400,000 euros out of the Toplana. He says he handed BIRN his correspondence with Barac.

Besides cash, he claims he drew a salary for years at the Novi Sad municipal company Lisje, through a youth cooperative, without ever working there. He has a simple name for it: “Those are phantom jobs, that’s what they call them.”

How much does a vote cost and where were the groups used?

One of his tasks, he says, was to put pressure, together with the men he gathered, on so-called safe voters to turn out at polling stations. He described the price of a vote this way: “It was usually a hundred euros, now I hear they give much more… I hear they give four hundred, five hundred euros for a vote.” So the figure of 100 euros is something he knows from his own experience, while the higher sums, as he stresses himself, he knows from hearsay.

He names Backa Palanka, where his team guarded SNS premises on August 12, then Backi Petrovac, and Novi Sad, in front of the party’s offices on the night between October 13 and 14. Among the demonstrators, he claims, were “planted elements”, people engaged by the party.

He estimates that about a hundred people in the park carried revolvers:

“Walking through that Cacilend, I saw a lot of people with revolvers, which, by the way, they didn’t even hide.”

Asked whether he felt fear because of so many weapons, he answered: “Of course I felt fear. Every normal person is afraid.”

Why did he break with the party?

Marjanovic says he parted ways with the party when he refused to go to Kula before the local elections held on March 29, 2026. Threats followed, he claims. In May this year, he says, Bojan Mihajlovic and Vladimir Zukic cut him off in a car. By his account, Zukic hit the glass of his car four times. He reported the incident to the police.

Mihajlovic and Zukic declined to answer BIRN’s questions, and both said they do not know Marjanovic.