Son on a Business Trip

Moscow, Baku in Azerbaijan, Tumen in Siberia, Alma Ata in Kazakhstan and finally Irkutsk. These locations were usually offered as probable answers to the question ‘where is Marko Milosevic, son of the ousted President Slobodan Milosevic?’ Only in the case of Irkutsk, more detailed information was issued to the public. Namely, ‘Glas Javnosti’ daily published on Sunday, March 3rd that Milosevic Jr. actually resides in five-six Russian towns, and that he could at that time be found the ‘Sun’ Hotel at Irkutsk, where the mafia boss Antalan is taking care of his personal safety. It is also said that Antalan is allegedly paid some 20 million dollars for that service, and that the money came from a certain M.M., the owner of several building construction companies in Russia (this was all allegedly initiated by an anonymous high FRY official). On March 4th, the ‘Sun’ hotel personnel denied that they offered hospitality to Milosevic in the hotel, stating that ‘Glas Javnosti’ caused an invaluable damage to them and announced that they would claim a protection from the international court. The information concerning Antalan was neither substantiated, nor denied. Hence, the story about Irkutsk , just like the others, is still on the level of speculation.

In any case, it is evident that Marko Milosevic is in possession of one regular and four diplomatic passports. In the period between 1999 and 2000, he obtained six diplomatic travel permits; he lost one and returned the other one on his arrival to Moscow, in October last year – instead of it, he was issued with a regular passport. Thanks to diplomatic passports, Milosevic faces no problems on his attempt to enter some thirty countries of the world, but what still remains problematic is that no country has interest to welcome a man whose son is wanted by the Hague Tribunal for war crimes. In this case, it also refers to those countries that used to offer friendly receptions to his family – it is known that China refused to provide him with an asylum, due to his ‘problems with the permit to enter’, while the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs unofficially stated that India also refused to issue Milosevic Jr. with a visa. The question of the whereabouts of the former president’s son is, therefore, without an answer. That question that is no longer asked is what or whom is he running away from.

BOXES AND CIGARETTES: Although he once stated that he started feeling ‘isolated since he was thirteen’, that he was always a ‘target for gossips’, and that there were ‘a few attacks on his life’, he revealed his biggest wish – he ‘cannot wait his father’s retirement’. Prior to October 5th, Marko could not complain on anything: in Serbia, where one can not even purchase a washing machine from his own labour, the 27-year-old man succeeded in amassing a fortune, worth several million German marks, in only several years. Apart from the disco club ‘Madona’ (it is said to be the biggest in the Balkans), equipped with the latest technology, in Pozarevac, the native town of his parents, Marko was the owner of the ‘Cyber net’ shop, a bakery and a pizza restaurant, a radio station, the internet-providing centre and the sport and recreation centre ‘Bambilend’ (which includes various sport courts, fountains, swimming pools, labyrinths, a ‘bambi’palace, shops, an open stage…).  In the centre of Belgrade, Milosevic opened a luxurious perfume shop ‘Skandal’, and at the border with Hungary and Macedonia, he possessed a chain of duty-free shops. Marko had his mother’s family house in Pozarevac fully rebuilt, and bought another 13.5 acres of land adjacent to it.

According to his father’s words, Marko gained all that capital step by step, with hard toil, having begun by bearing beer boxes for small money. The results of a survey conducted by a special department of German police for combating crime in the sector of economy, disclosed that what he really did was cigarette smuggling. German police is of the opinion that ‘the Milosevic family in collaboration with the Montenegrin authorities’ had a leading role in the providing of European black market with cigarettes. That business was allegedly very profitable, more than a billion dollars per year, and it was backed up by the American cigarette-producing lobby. Due to the high cost of their products in European countries, they would send cigarettes via special ships to specific companies, entitled as purchasers. The main destinations of these deliveries, accompanied with official international papers, were the Slovenian port Kopar and Hamburg. The media have it that last November, the cigarettes were transported from Hamburg into Serbia, with all necessary papers. There, they were taken care of by the former chief of the Federal Customs Bureau, Mihalj Kertes. The Kopar delivery was transferred to the ship ‘Kaliori’, owned by a Greek company (for which German police determined that it actually belonged to Marko Milosevic). The problem is that the seat of the firm is nominally in Athens, while the address and registration are false. This firm was paying all costs for the delivered goods and transportation expenses; the bills were paid from the money deposited in European banks, while the warrants that came from American firms, were also fake. There are so many mysterious fragments of the story – the only concrete information concerns a Vladimir Bokan – a Greek businessman of Yugoslav origin, murdered in October last year. Namely, a lawyer from Athens told the German investigators that the same Bokan was collaborating with the aforementioned firm by Marko Milosevic. He did not give any statement about it until October 6th: then, he denied on Greek television that he had any business arrangements with Slobodan Milosevic’s son. He was murdered a few hours after that statement.

On August 4th, last year, Italian press disclosed that Marko Milosevic was behind the cigarette black market, produced in a tobacco factory in Rovinj (Ronhil, which is produced there is very popular in Serbia). Apparently, those transactions were carried out via Kopar and Montenegro, and after the political collision between Belgrade and Podgorica, the transport was conducted by way of Slovenia and Hungary. According to Belgrade daily ‘Danas’ (August 5th, 2000), the transporters of those cigarettes claimed that they had enjoyed complete immunity from Serbian police officers, while the financial police in Pula estimated this business as highly profitable – it brought several thousands of German marks per annum.

The involvement of Marko Milosevic in the cigarette black market also associates him with the firm 'Inter Speed', which comprises several duty-free shops and representative companies in Yugoslavia and abroad dealing with cigarettes. The owner of that firm was Marko close friend, Vladimir Kovacevic Tref, murdered in February 1997 – they started their friendship in the early nineties, when Marko became a member of Kovacevic’s racing car’s team. While Kovacevic invested funds in their mutual business, Marko’s share was the connections. On February 19th 1997, a Montenegrin black market boss Bozidar Bob Radunovic gave a statement for ‘Nedeljni Telegraf’ weekly: ‘Those planes that transport cigarettes for Serbia land in Nis, not Belgrade. From there, they are delivered to all parts of Yugoslavia. You should better ask Marko Milosevic where all those cigarettes in the streets of Serbia come from… He is the biggest dealer in the whole Yugoslavia. Everyone knows that 'Inter Speed' is the only company in Yugoslavia that has permission to import cigarettes’. Twenty-four hours later, Tref was killed. At the beginning of March 1997, the management of 'Inter Speed' officially denied that Milosevic and Kovacevic had been involved in any mutual business arrangement. However, Kovacevic’s murder remained unsolved.

It can be assumed that Milosevic Jr., aware of the October thirst for settling scores, ran away from those people before whom he used to appear as untouchable. Although there were such officials who could offer protection to Slobodan Milosevic’s son even after October 5th, it was obvious that Marko’s reputation shrank. In any case, he had reason to be afraid of the whole Serbia.

SMART AND BEAUTIFUL: On October 5th, apart from the building of the Federal Parliament, and RTS (Radio Television of Serbia), some of Marko’s property was also a target of the national anger: his perfume shop ‘Skandal’ in Knez Mihajlova Street, the ‘Cyber net’ shop and the bakery in Pozarevac. Unlike some who also piled up enormous wealth in Serbia thanks to some unofficial business, Marko was never vigilant about showing off with what he possessed. Tresspassing into the premises of some independent media (‘Glas Javnosti’, Radio Bum 93), threats and harassments of everyone who would look at him askance, and finally his conflicts with Otpor activists (Pozarevac, May 2000) made Milosevic’s Jr. an untouchable and almighty figure. Any possibility of bringing charges against him was just a fiction. No one even attempted to report any of his infringements – in Pozarevac, where he lived, everyone knew who the boss was.

At the time when a great deal of population in Serbia was starving to death with salaries of only several marks per month, Marko Milosevic stated: ‘I had nineteen car accidents. My dad was very pissed off each time it happened, but after the fifteenth crashed car, he stopped paying attention’. At the time when others’ sons were giving their lives for Serbia’s holy lands, Mirjana Markovic, Marko’s mother wrote: ‘St. Sava contributed enormously to the literacy of our nation, but my son drives a racing car 250 km an hour, he sends me greetings on my beeper, he takes shower four times a day, and he cannot understand how a clock with Arab digits functions – he started using it only two year ago’. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Marko and his accompany wore black police uniforms, president’s son was allegedly addressed to as ‘commander’, although no one dared asked a question how come someone who has not yet fulfilled the regular military service could wear a uniform and have a status of a volunteer soldier. Nevertheless, there were various paramilitary formations in Serbia, led even by those whose father was not Slobodan Milosevic. According to the majority, the peak of hypocrisy on the part of Marko Milosevic is his construction of the ‘Bambilend’ – this complex was built during the bombardment, and it is a miracle that it remained intact after October 5th.

In November 2000, Marko’s wife, Milica Gajic submitted a formal request to the municipal office in Pozarevac, in which she asked for a permission to have the works on restoration of the ‘Madona’ disco club resumed. It did not happen, and the club is still closed (just like the rest of Marko’s enterprises in Pozarevac), but even the request itself goes in favour of the theory that the fear of revenge was not the main reason for Marko’s fleeing the country.

Whatever the case may be, Marko Milosevic left the country only a day after his father announced that he would devote his spare time to his family, especially his grand son Marko. Whether he was frightened or not, we do not know. It also remains inconclusive where he is at present, or whether he would be coming back to Serbia or not, relying on his earlier statement that ‘with or without my dad, I’m still young, smart, capable and beautiful’ (‘Nin’, March 12th, 1998). Someone wrote a graffito on the wall of his demolished perfume shop: ‘Complain to your daddy!’. Since the destiny of his daddy is just being decided on these days, it is uncertain if the ‘young, smart, capable and beautiful’ boy will have anyone to complain to.