Insider Blows Lid on Serbian Ruling Party’s Use of Hired Thugs

Momcilo Marjanovic spent a decade providing ‘security’ for Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party, SNS. He was largely unseen, paid in cash or via his fictitious employment at a public utility in his hometown of Novi Sad. The work was dynamic, adrenaline-filled and, in the two years since student-led protests erupted against the SNS-led government, increasingly violent. “My role was to lead a group of guys to the riskiest and most critical places, to any gatherings where students or the opposition were on the other side,” said Marjanovic. “We were at the epicentre. It was our job, as a last resort of course, to use force, although it often happened not as a last resort.” Increasingly disillusioned and uneasy with the direction of events, Marjanovic parted ways with the SNS earlier this year. Days before the most important elections in Serbia since the 2000 fall of strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the 54-year-old spoke to BIRN, blowing the lid on the tactics employed by the SNS to suppress dissent, incite violence, buy votes, and intimidate would-be opposition voters. “At some point, a man of my age, father of a wonderful daughter, comes to his senses,” he said. The SNS did not respond to a request for comment. ‘Ready to use violence’ One of the characteristics of the SNS’s 14 years in power has been the use of hired muscle – informal security structures of burly, black-clad men. Marjanovic was a veteran of those informal structures, deployed to defend party offices from protesters or coordinate security at major party events. Men like him have become notorious, fuelling fears of yet more violence when Serbia votes on October 25. As far back as 2014, two years after the SNS rose to power, election monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, cited “credible reports of voter intimidation cases”, “vote-buying, pressure and intimidation of voters”. There has been little improvement since. When a concrete canopy at a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed on November 1, 2024, killing 16 people, men like Marjanovic were once again thrust to the fore. The protests that erupted have been marred by reports of violence meted out by informal security structures affiliated with the SNS, as well as by police. Hired muscle, said Predrag Petrovic, research director of the Belgrade-based think-tank Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, “can do what the police, at least openly and without consequences, cannot”. “Among them are people from the criminal underworld, ready to use violence and take on risks that state actors want to avoid,” Petrovic told BIRN. “In this way, the regime gets an informal instrument of coercion, with the ability to deny responsibility for its actions.” For their services, Marjanovic said he doled out cash given to him by the director of the Novi Sad heating utility, Nenad Barac. He also received a monthly salary through an intermediate employment agency engaged by another utility company, Lisje, in charge of the city’s cemeteries. Barac declined to comment. “Those are phantom jobs, that’s what they call them,” he told BIRN. “But I’m not the only one, unfortunately.” “I never went to work, but, of course, I received a regular salary.” Lisje did not immediately respond to requests for comment. From history student to ruling party ‘security’ Marjanovic with other security men during an altercation with protesters outside the SNS offices in Novi Sad, October 2025. Screenshot: YouTube/Jordan Creek.Marjanovic studied history at university in Novi Sad, but ended up graduating in sport and physical education. His career in security began straight after graduation with a string of jobs in clubs, betting shops and private firms. About a decade ago, at a friend’s urging, he joined the SNS. At first, Marjanovic said he provided security for party rallies and events that the party, or local governments where the party was in power, organised in the northern province of Vojvodina and elsewhere. One of his tasks, he told BIRN, was to make sure “safe voters” – those who promised to vote for the SNS and were mainly employed in the public sector – turned out in elections. They were paid to do so. “It was usually 100 euros, but now I hear they’re giving much more,” said Marjanovic. “I hear they’re giving 400, 500 euros for a vote.” The SNS did not respond to requests for comment on Marjanovic’s allegations, but Aleksandar Vucic, the party’s founder and candidate for prime minister, this week denied the party was paying for votes, calling the claims “lies”. When the protests began, Marjanovic said his job was to organise security for SNS rallies or counter-protests. He was also among the men securing the SNS party offices in Novi Sad on the night of October 13-14 last year, when clashes broke out and a member of an elite army unit fired his weapon into the air. “I was in the front rows there too, as always,” Marjanovic told BIRN. “That’s where I took a bottle to the mouth and a rock to the leg, but I think I got that from guys who were sent from our side, meaning our own people.” He was referring to infiltrators, paid by the party to provoke violence that could later be blamed on the protesters. “We organised guys from other towns, not known to the locals, to infiltrate into their ranks, so that they would attack and throw stones and pyrotechnics at the police, so that the students would be blamed. Armed thugs Police stand guard at the pro-government supporters’ camp known as Caciland on March 15, 2025 in Belgrade. Photo: Andrej Cukic/EPA.On March 15, 2025, an estimated 300,000 people protested in central Belgrade, calling for accountability for the Novi Sad railway tragedy and elections. Marjanovic spent the preceding fortnight in a camp, nicknamed Caciland, set up by SNS supporters in a park between the presidency building and the parliament. The tents were occupied mainly by employees of state-run companies, but there was also a ring of men with criminal backgrounds tasked with protecting the perimeter. Marjanovic said it was clear what his task was: to defend the camp by any means necessary. He and his men would collect long bars, spray cans and balaclavas from a tent in the centre of the camp. “There was no need to go into detail, it was understood what had to be done: if a clash happens… we have everything we need… And we go all the way, no mercy.” When March 15 arrived, Marjanovic said he was in the front row. “Each person had a superior who led a group of people for that section, for that space, for that stretch of fence,” he said. “Considering the kind of characters who were inside, the atmosphere was okay,” Marjanovic told BIRN. “Some even hoped for trouble.” Marjanovic claimed he saw at least 100 people inside the camp armed with pistols, “which, by the way, they didn’t even hide”. “Tucked in the back of the waistband or at the belt… Not long-barrelled weapons, but they carried revolvers, and not just a few people. Definitely 100 or so.” Asked whether he was afraid, Marjanovic replied: “Of course, I felt fear. Any normal person feels fear.” No photos of the alleged weapons have been published. However, other sources who have spoken to BIRN anonymously have also mentioned that some of the people in the camp were armed. Paid in cash Text exchanges between Marjanovic and Nenad Barac about payments Marjanovic was due to collect.Marjanovic alleged that the police were complicit, that officers “protected and coordinated” with people inside the camp. He said he heard one officer saying that, if necessary, they might let a few protesters through, into the camp, so those inside could “rough them up a bit” as a warning to others. He also claimed to have heard a senior police officer telling people: “Make sure you protect your ears for the next 15 minutes”, words that will only fuel the claims of protesters that police deployed an acoustic weapon, causing a stampede. The government has consistently denied using any such weapon. Marjanovic said he was paid 500 euros for his stay in the camp, and his men 200 each. Petrovic, from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, said the camp, strategically located between the presidency, parliament, Belgrade City Assembly and public broadcaster, was effectively a “paramilitary base for the supposed defence of institutions against invented threats from the demonstrators”. It also prevented the protesters from gathering there and served as a “logistical base for violent incidents in Belgrade, directed at students and citizens, but also at journalists”. Marjanovic said he was in “direct communication” with Barac, the director of the heating utility in Novi Sad, Novosadska Toplana. “I took money directly from him and paid the guys I led,” he said. The money came in cash, handed to Marjanovic at the Toplana offices. “When he [Barac] wasn’t there, the money was waiting for me with his secretary,” Marjanovic told BIRN. He estimated that since the railway tragedy in November 2024, he had personally “carried out” between 350,000 and 400,000 euros from Barac’s office. WhatsApp messages between Marjanovic and Barac contained repeated references to payments. Barac declined to comment on the allegations, asking only where BIRN got such information before ending the conversation. Marjanovic said he also received a monthly salary via an intermediary employment agency engaged by the company in charge of Novi Sad’s cemeteries, Lisje. He never actually worked for Lisje. A parting of ways Supporters cheer on a university student on a march to Belgrade for a mass anti-government rally on March 14, 2025. Photo: Andrej Cukic/EPA.Marjanovic began having doubts about his collaboration with the SNS during his stint in the camp in central Belgrade, when he had to stop residents of the camp from physically assaulting two young people who had entered the perimeter. Then, in March this year, he refused to go to the town of Kula during local elections there. The vote was marred by the presence of dozens of men in balaclavas, armed with metal bars. Marjanovic said his daughter is in her early twenties, of a similar age to those taking to the streets against the SNS. When, at his daughter’s urging, Marjanovic paid a visit to a revered Serbian Orthodox monastery in Montenegro, he took the decision to quit, “knowing what awaits me… that my livelihood would be threatened”. He said he hoped his “comrades” might hear his confession and realise that “all of this is going down the wrong path”. After his refusal to go to Kula, Marjanovic said he was threatened by two SNS activists. Then, in May, he was assaulted in Novi Sad. Marjanovic identified his attackers as Bojan Mihajlovic, a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter, and Vladimir Zukic, both affiliated with the ruling party. Marjanovic went to the police but nothing ever came of it. Both Mihajlovic and Zukic refused to comment.