How Did Serbia’s Minister of Health get an Apartment? The bizarre and deadly allegations behind the rise of Zlatibor Lončar.
Zlatibor Lončar (Serbian Cyrillic: Златибор Лончар) is a Serbian doctor and politician. He has served as the Minister of Health in the Government of Serbia from 27 April 2014.
According to the testimonies of several Zemun Clan members, Lončar had close relationship with the head of the criminal group Dušan Spasojević.
According to the 2004 testimony of the cooperative witness Dejan Milenković Bagzi (who was an important member of the Zemun Clan) in the Zoran Đinđić trial, in Serbian Special Court for Organised Crime: on 5 September 2002, Belgrade-based Rakovica Clan tried to eliminate the Montenegrin criminal Veselin Božović Vesko, but he survived the assassination and was transferred to the Clinical Centre of Serbia in which at that time worked Lončar.
Allegedly, he had good chances to survive and his condition was stable. According to Milenković, head of the criminal group Dušan Spasojević who also had interest of Božović’s death, asked one of his insider doctors Risović to finish him in the hospital, but he was having second thoughts.
Later, allegedly, another Spasojević’s insider doctor, Lončar confessed to Spasojević that he gave him lethal injection and Božović died shortly after, on 7 September 2002.
For the reward, Spasojević gave him apartment in New Belgrade. Officially, ten days after Božović’s death, Lončar bought the apartment from the wife of Zemun Clan hitman Sretko Kalinić for 30,000 euros only to re-sell it months later.
Miladin Suvajdžić, another cooperative witness and former important member of the Zemun Clan, in his 2006 testimony confirmed the story of Milenković; one of the main roles of Suvajdžić was to buy properties, vehicles for various of reasons. At the time of testimonies, Lončar denied these allegations and was never prosecuted.
In 2005, convicted Zemun Clan member Milomir Kaličanin testified that many police officers, footballers and doctors Lončar and Risović often came to Zemun Clan headquarters.
In January 2017, following the political battle with former ally Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić and alleged assassination attempt, Serbian politician Velimir Ilić showed media several photos of Lončar and notorious Zemun Clan now deceased head Dušan Spasojević, along with other criminal members and footballers Dragoljub Jeremić and Danko Lazović who were interrogated during the Operation Sabre.
The photos were taken in period prior to the Zemun Clan assassination of Zoran Đinđić, while Lončar was studying for specialization thesis in general surgery.
Serbian Prime Minister Vučić backed minister saying that Lončar told him that: “the photo was taken after Lončar completed surgery on Spasojević’s father and later called him to a nearby café to thank him”. Ilić replied saying that the specialization students cannot operate surgeries.cc
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