Milanovic offers $50,000 for names of 26 pardoned people
A US-based IT entrepreneur is offering up to $50,000 for confirmed names of 26 of the 49 people pardoned, while KRIK says the Presidency has not answered.
Nenad Milanovic, a US-based IT entrepreneur and founder of Cake.com, announced on X on October 16 that he is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for confirmed names of 26 people whom former president Aleksandar Vucic pardoned on September 27, 2026, and whose names have not been made public. Entries close on October 23 at 11:59 p.m. Belgrade time, two days before the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 25. According to KRIK, the Serbian Presidency has not answered a request for the same list, even though the legal deadline of 15 days has passed.
What Milanovic announced, and the rules
In his post on X, Milanovic lays out the figures he starts from:
“Former president Aleksandar Vucic pardoned, or granted amnesty to, 49 people on September 27, 2026. The public knows 23 of the names. The names of the other 26 have not been published to this day.”
He then explains why he wants the list. “The law does not provide for secret pardons. Citizens have the right to know whom the state has freed from prosecution or punishment,” Milanovic wrote, adding: “I am offering USD 50,000 for confirmed names of these 26 people.”
As reported by the media, the rules of the contest come down to a few points:
- the reward is proportional to the number of new confirmed names, about $1,923 per name, and total payouts cannot exceed $50,000
- a name must not already be public when the submission arrives, and priority goes to whoever first sends the name together with proof
- accepted proof includes official pardon decisions, court rulings and case files, documents signed by the responsible officials, or statements from the pardoned people and their lawyers
- rumors and unconfirmed claims are not rewarded, and forged documents disqualify the entrant
- payment follows within 15 days of a name being confirmed, and Milanovic himself decides whether a submission qualifies, after consulting a lawyer
On the partial list, Milanovic wrote that the reward is paid in proportion to the number of new confirmed names. “Based on current information, that is 26 names, or about USD 1,923 per name. Total payouts cannot exceed USD 50,000,” he said.
Public officials fall under a separate regime. Employees of the president’s cabinet, the Ministry of Justice, the courts, prosecutors’ offices, the police and the Sentence Enforcement Administration who learned the information at work cannot receive the money directly. Their share would go into a whistleblower legal protection fund, meant to pay for lawyers, which would be kept for five years. Milanovic advises them to act under the Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers and to consult a lawyer before disclosing anything. The contest ends early if the authorities officially publish the complete list.
The Presidency did not answer KRIK
KRIK also tried to obtain the same names. The newsroom asked the Serbian Presidency, under the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, for the first and last names of those pardoned. KRIK says no reply came even after the legal deadline of 15 days expired. It requested the same information from the Ministry of Justice, which also did not answer KRIK’s questions. The ministry had earlier told the Beta agency that this was a decision of the former president and that it would take no part in carrying it out.
The law does not oblige the president to publish a pardon decision, but practice has been different. The Presidency’s website still carries a decision from January of last year pardoning 13 people, among them Natalija Jovanovic, dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Nis, and university professor Radivoje Jovovic. Decisions pardoning four SNS activists who broke a female student’s jaw in Novi Sad, and a young woman who drove a car into protesters during a student blockade in New Belgrade, were also published, KRIK reports.
What Vucic said about the pardoned
At the press conference where he announced his resignation, Vucic said he had pardoned 49 people. KRIK recalls that he named only the activists who are on trial in Novi Sad over an alleged attempt to overthrow the constitutional order. He said:
“Despite the opinion of part of the commission, despite the opinion of various services of Serbia, security services, I made the decision to pardon 12 people from the ‘Novi Sad group,’ led by Mila Pajic.”
According to the same report, Vucic also said that 11 of the 49 pardoned people “took part in incidents against blockaders.” That is Vucic’s own statement, relayed by KRIK, and the names of those eleven are not known. We previously reported on Prijovic’s claims that Vesic and Dimoska are among the 49 pardoned.
A second fund: $200,000 for evidence
The portal gledaj.rs, citing Pravo u centar, reports that Milanovic announced $250,000 in total. Alongside the $50,000 for the names of the pardoned, there is a $200,000 fund for people whose evidence is used in proceedings against state officials over the alleged denial of voting rights to Serbian citizens abroad. That money would be paid only if the proceedings end in final convictions, so filing a report or handing over evidence does not by itself bring a payout.
According to Milanovic, criminal complaints against 12 state officials and diplomats over the failure to open polling stations abroad were filed with the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade on October 13, among them Foreign Minister Marko Djuric and acting Secretary General of the ministry Dusan Kozarev. There is no confirmation from the prosecutor’s office that it received the complaints or of their status, so for now this is only Milanovic’s claim. The presumption of innocence applies to everyone named.
Both funds are private initiatives. They are not awarded by state institutions, and Milanovic remains the only one who decides whether a name has been confirmed.
