Belgrade, 11/3/2023

PUBLIC STATEMENT

VULIN’S TIME AT THE HEAD OF SIA DIDN’T LAST LONG,
LET’S HOPE THE SAME GOES FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SCANDALS THAT WENT WITH IT

Forum for Security and Democracy views Aleksandar Vulin’s resignation from the position of the director of the Security-Information Agency as a necessary, long overdue, step on the long road of returning the work of SIA back within the bounds proscribed by the Constitution and the law.

FSD reminds that the brief term of Mr. Vulin at the head of the SIA will be remembered for it’s numerous scandals, among which we underline the security breaches surrounding the massacre near Mladenovac, the political profiling of Russian dissidents opposing the war in Ukraine and the many abuses of the secret services’ discretionary authorities in dealing with political opponents.

FSD, however, points out that his biggest failure as SIA Director – as well as the real reason behind his resignation – is his failure to uncover the plans of Radoicic’s group which took part in the armed skirmish in Banjska on September 24th – a subject on which Vulin is conspicuously silent.

FSD expects that the departure of Aleksandar Vulin from the position of Director will enable an investigation in the security sector, possibly even a criminal investigation by the proper prosecutors’ office, on how the group formed around Milan Radoicic could have illegally stockpiled weapons in Serbia and seemingly unidisturbedly smuggle it from Serbia over the administrative line and into Kosovo.

FSD equally so, expects that with Aleksandar Vulin’s stepping down from the position of SIA Director Russian malign influence which Vulin himself has not so symbolically personified will diminish, albeit not significantly.