FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The director of the Security and Information Agency, Tomislav Radovanovic, made a misjudgment in 2006 that almost ended in tragedy when the fence in the stands was broken at a basketball game, probably today his professional career will developed in a different direction. A wrong decision that injured more than 20 people could have cost Radovanovic his career, but apparently the opposite happened.
The Security and Information Agency (BIA), after the information that the acting director of the BIA has been appointed, on its website, has highlighted the biography of acting director Tomislav Radovanović, who is also the first acting official in the history of the secret service.
His biography at first sight is impressive: "He completed the Military Academy in Belgrade in 1995. He has been continuously employed in the security structures of the Republic of Serbia for 28 years. During his career so far, he has performed operational-tactical and strategic management tasks in the Serbian Army, MIA and BIA. In the Security and Information Agency, on December 7, 2023, he was appointed acting chief technology officer BIA. During his long career, Radovanovic has been awarded several times", it is written, among other things, on the website of the BIA.
Despite his seemingly impressive career, Radovanovic also had some flaws, and one of the biggest occurred on June 15, 2006, when the man whose biography says he performed "strategic operational-tactical and managerial work" made a disastrous assessment and made a completely wrong decision and gave the wrong order to the men under his command, which fortunately ended without catastrophic consequences.
At that time, the final of the Serbian basketball championship between Partizan and Crvena zvezda was played in the "Pionir" hall in Belgrade. As in every derby, the situation was tense, on the verge of an incident, with countless provocations from the fans of both sides. The police at that time had only been established for a few years and were inexperienced, and the head of the unit in the "Pionir" hall was Tomislav Radovanovic, the current acting director of the BIA.
The Red Star fans had prepared an unpleasant surprise for the hated "gendarmes" for this derby. In the first half, they filled the condoms with urine and started shooting at the members of this unit. What followed was a sudden, brutal and, most importantly, evil and dangerous police response. The armored "gentlemen" climbed up to the stand and started beating everyone one by one, pushing them towards the stand.
"Radovanovic was not popular among the gendarmes because he had rigid attitudes. This, I think, was the first time that the Gendarmerie intervened in this way in a basketball game. Conflicts were common in football games, but something like this in basketball is rare. There have been no incidents of such magnitude that such force was used. We are used to provocations and punches, but at that time the gendarmerie did not have that much experience. Among the fans there are usually Public Order and Peace inspectors who recognize and are responsible for locating the most extreme fans, pulling them from the crowd and arresting them, thus preventing major incidents. In that game it was different and the only good thing is that no one was killed", explains a former member of the Gendarmerie who was in that department in those years.
The fans piled up against the fence, and then the fence fell and people started falling to the floor from a height of about 3 meters. They fell over each other and the cameras recorded everything. The scene was shocking and reminded him of the biggest tragedy in European football, at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium, when on May 29, 1985, 39 people died in the stands in a stampede after clashes between Juventus and Liverpool fans.
By an incredible miracle, no one died in Belgrade. The balance was 21 injured policemen and fans, one of them in serious condition. 30 people were arrested. These are the figures according to the official announcement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, and there is no doubt that the number of injured was much higher because many of them were not allowed to seek medical help in a regular manner, so as not to be arrested.
Even the then Minister of Police, Dragan Jočič, who tried to justify the brutal action of the police, stated that they were provoked by the fans. However, in the video it can be seen that the "gendarmes" were ordered to start beating everyone in front of them at a moment when the situation, at least by the standards of the fans in Serbia, was not so tense and dangerous.
The then Minister of Police, Jočič, initially justified the brutal action of the police and the excessive use of force, although everyone saw what was happening in "Pinor" and that due to a wrong assessment, instead of calming down the situation, The gendarmerie only threatened the security and attacked only the hooligans who offended them, but all the spectators in that stand.
In the end, the man who completely misjudged the situation and gave the wrong order that could have had tragic consequences - Tomislav Radovanovic - was fired due to dissatisfaction with his job. He never returned to the Gendarmerie, but was appointed commander of the Belgrade Police Intervention Unit.
Radovanović experienced a new upsurge in his career with the change of government and the arrival of Dijana Hrkalović as Secretary of State in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was appointed to the position of head of the Department for Special Methods of Investigation and at the time when the conflict arose between Hrkalović and the former Minister of Police Nebojša Stefanović, with mutual accusations of wiretapping the President of the Republic, Aleksandar Vučić, and Radovanović, talking about parallel structures in the police. At the time, it was speculated that Radovanovic was a serious candidate for the post of police director.
When there was a rotation between the MIA and the BIA, Aleksandar Vulin took him with him when he switched from the police to the secret service, and it was Radovanovic who succeeded him as director of the secret service when Vulin had to resign after the debacle of the State of Serbia in Banjska, September 24.
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