Darko Saric: New Sky Messages on a Promised Pardon
Weekly Radar claims messages from 2020 point to an agreed ten-year sentence and a promise that court errors would be corrected by a pardon.
The weekly Radar published previously unknown Sky messages from 2020 on October 15. In its reading, they mention the terms of Darko Saric’s surrender, a promised pardon and money Saric gave “for the party.” Radar says the complete Sky communication of Saric and his associates about contacts with the top of the government most likely still sits with the Interior Ministry (MUP) of Serbia. What follows is the weekly’s claims and the content of the messages as it relayed them, and none of it has been established in court.
What does the June 1, 2020 message say?
Saric was in custody at the time. His key associate Bojan Stanojkovic wrote to him about a conversation between a businessman called Uliks (Ulx) and a person called Cvarak, whom Radar identifies with Oskar. Stanojkovic relays what Cvarak told Uliks: “I told you he won’t be lying for more than 10, and that’s how it will be.” Right after that comes: “They will be acquitted of laundering and their property will be returned…” According to the same message, Cvarak added that he never promised an ankle monitor.
Then comes a sentence about a pardon, which Radar quotes in the body of its text this way:
“if something slips by me with the judges and the sentence, I give you my word that I will fix it with some pardon, even if it costs me three months of being called out.”
In the introduction of the piece the same part of the message appears in a shortened form (“even if it costs me”), so it is relayed here as it is written in the correspondence itself.
Who are Oskar, Cvarak, Edo and Marko according to Radar?
Radar claims the nickname Oskar, or Cvarak, hides the then president Aleksandar Vucic, that “Edo” is the then police minister Nebojsa Stefanovic, and that “Marko” is Marko Parezanovic, at the time a senior official of the Security Information Agency (BIA). These are the weekly’s claims. Radar adds that the same nicknames appear in the new indictment against Saric for attempting to discredit a cooperating witness, filed on the basis of Sky correspondence obtained through international legal assistance.
A pardon is a presidential power, so Radar concludes that Cvarak is Vucic. The weekly also notes that the public has not been told whom he pardoned before resigning as president. The text contains no response from Vucic, Stefanovic, Parezanovic, Gasic, the police or BIA.
What does Radar say about the 2014 deal?
According to the weekly, the new correspondence indicates that Saric surrendered to the Serbian authorities in March 2014 under terms agreed in advance: ten years in prison, an acquittal on the money laundering charge and the return of part of the seized property. From this Radar also infers that Saric was one of the financiers of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
In an email of May 25, 2020, which Radar cites, Uliks states that “it was agreed for the main trial that he would get 12 years at most.” He names “the two top men of the judiciary” and BIA as parties to the arrangement, and he describes what, as he writes, the deal was:
“The deal was for the proceedings to end as quickly as possible, for them to be acquitted of laundering and for their property to be returned.”
On May 25, 2020, Stanojkovic told Saric that Uliks had sent that email to a person they call Dolar.
Votes, a BIA meeting and money for the party
Saric’s brother Dusko Saric wrote to his brother in prison on May 20, 2020 that he should meet “Oskar’s brother.” His sentence is relayed as: “I will probably meet Oskar’s brother now, he wants to see me so I can give him these 2 thousand votes.” Radar does not say how those votes were meant to be used.
According to the messages, a meeting at BIA was set for May 26, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. Radar writes that the then BIA director Bratislav Gasic walked into the room during it.
On November 20, 2020, Saric wrote to an unidentified interlocutor: “I gave them the first money for the party,” adding that he gave the first 2.1 million through Ulx. The message does not name a currency.
What happened after the election?
According to Stanojkovic, Cvarak promised new contact “as soon as the elections pass.” Parliamentary elections were held on June 21, 2020. Saric was released to house arrest with an ankle monitor on December 24, 2021, and was arrested again on April 14, 2022, when the Sky messages arrived through international legal assistance.
