Translation provided by KoSSev
The Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime received a request to question Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic as a witness in the case of the murder of Serb youths in the Pec cafe „Panda“ in 1998. The Prosecution will make a decision on the request submitted on behalf of the parents of the murdered youth on August 10th by lawyer Ivan Ninic, however, the attorney of the injured parties and the injured party will be notified of the decision first, the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime told Danas.
Lawyer Ninic said in a statement for Danas that he is waiting for an answer from the Prosecutor’s Office and that on behalf of the families of the murdered young men from Pec, he hopes that it will be positive, because „any other solution would be worrisome.“ According to him, the families have submitted requests for Vucic to be questioned as a witness on their own several times before, but so far they have not received any response from the Prosecutor’s Office.
In the request forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, lawyer Ninic stated that the parents of the murdered youth demanded that Vucic be questioned regarding the statements he made about the massacre in „Panda“ on several occasions from 2013 to 2018 when he alleged that the crime was not committed by Albanians and that he „practically knows“ what happened in the cafe on that fateful night. These statements are included in the request.
Ninic says that according to the same criterion, which was applied when making the decision to accept the evidentiary actions of the questioning of all other proposed witnesses, who spoke out publicly regarding the event, Aleksandar Vucic would have to be questioned as well, especially because of the significance of his statement from December 2013, when he served as the head of the Bureau for Coordination of Security Services.
The parents of the murdered young men tried dozens of times in vain to meet with Vucic. In early 2023, he announced several times publicly that he would meet with them, but so far that has yet to take place.
Ivan Obradović (15), Zoran Stanojević (18), Vukota Gvozdenović (16), Svetislav Ristić (18), Ivan Radević (24) and Dragan Trifović (18), were murdered, while Vladimir Lončarević (18) and Mirsad Šabović (34) were seriously wounded, and Nikola Rajović (18) escaped with minor injuries, in an armed attack by two masked persons on December 14, 1998, in the „Panda“ cafe in Pec.
Because of this crime, the State Security at the time arrested and suspected a group of local Albanians, and the Vice President of the Federal Government of the FRY in charge of Kosovo and Metohija at the time, Nikola Sainovic, announced that the „Panda“ case had been solved.
The arrested Kosovo Albanians were later released from custody due to lack of evidence.
In the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime in Belgrade, an investigation into the massacre in the „Panda“ cafe was launched in November 2015, but the indictment has not yet been filed.
The testimony of Stanisic and Simatovic is requested
As Danas unofficially discovered, a request has been submitted to question the former head of the State Security Service Jovica Stanisic, and Franko Simatovic „Frenki“, also a high-ranking official of this body, as witnesses in the „Panda“ case. Both are Hague convicts. So far, the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime has questioned 39 witnesses – family members of the murdered young men, officials who participated in the investigation, as well as public figures who claimed in the media that they had information about the „Panda“ case.
According to speculations, Aleksandar Vucic allegedly has a habit of showing the „Panda“ case to public figures whom he assumes will not resist reporting the „knowledge“ to the media, although it is also said that none of the witnesses cited him as a source of information. Among those questioned was former war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic, who publicly claimed that he „knows more details about the murder in ‘Panda’ than Vucic“ and called on the President of the Republic to „tell the truth“.
„The crime was not committed by Albanians“
On December 26, 2013, as the First Vice-President of the Government of Serbia and head of the Security Services Coordination Bureau, Aleksandar Vucic said on „Teška reč“ show on TV Pink:
„The crime in ‘Panda’ was not committed by Albanians, as we believed so far. The public will be appalled when the truth is revealed.“ Vucic made similar statements in the following years. „We are crawling around in the dark. I’m almost certain about what happened in the ‘Panda’ cafe, but I have no proof. I’m not sure that our authorities could be proud of what they did then,“ Vucic said in late 2015, while he also spoke about the crime in „Panda“ in 2017 and 2018. Vucic’s statements are included in the request for questioning.
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