The initiation of proceedings against members of the executive branch, alongside direct attacks on the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime, has also triggered purges within police directorates, services and units which, by the very nature of their duties, work closely with that office.
In breach of all written and unwritten norms, the authorities have installed their own loyalists in the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP), the Service for Combating Organised Crime (SBPOK), as well as in the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ), appointing individuals without the appropriate education or experience, and in some cases despite security obstacles preventing them from performing such duties.
Nevertheless, the new heads of these three important police formations share further career traits beyond the fact that they are all former heads of the Protection Unit (JZO). Namely, all three men – Marko Kričak (UKP), Marko Zafirović (SBPOK) and Igor Žmirić (SAJ) – distinguished themselves over the past year through unlawful arrests and the beating of demonstrators, as members of the so-called Anti-Terrorist Group (ATG) within the JZO.
This previously unknown formation, numbering around 200 people, brought the entire Unit (1,300 members) into disrepute and also served as a reservoir for staffing the UKP, SBPOK and ultimately the SAJ, acting as a kind of recruitment centre for loyalists. More than 40 former members of this group within the JZO have been assigned to the UKP, SBPOK and SAJ. According to credible sources, individuals who joined this informal group significantly improved their financial standing over the past year.
Fear of a reaction
The Special Anti-Terrorist Unit was not deployed to suppress protests following the collapse of the canopy while it was headed by its long-serving commander, Colonel Spasoje Vulević. As a result, he became the target of a defamation campaign on social media as early as the end of 2024. On several occasions, the President of the Republic stated that he was not afraid of Colonel Vulević, only for it later to become clear that he had been dismissed on Vučić’s explicit orders. Although the Minister and police spokesperson Ivica Dačić claimed that the SAJ commander had retired at his own request – and was once again caught in a lie – this time it was contradicted by Colonel Vulević himself.
As far as the current executive authorities are concerned, who do not regard themselves as equal before the law with other citizens, one of the important functional roles of the SAJ is its use in so-called high-risk arrests. These occur when it is expected that those being detained may offer armed resistance to the police, whether they are terrorists, criminals or members of an illegitimate, renegade authority.
Out of fear of a potential reaction from members of this unit, the authorities have proceeded with extreme caution. Although Igor Žmirić moved from the post of Deputy Commander of the JZO to Commander of the SAJ as early as 7 November, it was only last week that he dared to begin removing potentially insufficiently loyal personnel from what is tactically by far the most capable unit within the Ministry of the Interior. Prior to that, following the dismissal of long-time SAJ commander Colonel Vulević at the beginning of September last year, the unit had been temporarily led by Miloš Maćešić, Deputy Commander of the SAJ.
Among Žmirić’s first moves will be the removal from the unit of the assistant commander and three team leaders. Tanja Drobnjak, a former JZO member who was filmed harassing students outside the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, has been brought into the SAJ. Around twenty SAJ members have submitted retirement requests, while a number have effectively been forced back into the JZO. Thus, Jovan Milićević, who was wounded twice in combat operations as a member of the SAJ, has been transferred from the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit to the JZO.
“That was, for example, one of the rules that had never been broken – that people wounded in the line of duty were not removed from the unit but remained in it until retirement. Now it seems that anything is possible,” said a Radar source familiar with events within the SAJ, who requested anonymity. “Instead of protecting such people, they are subject to retaliation. Previously, commanders were never appointed from outside the unit but always from within its ranks. Although Žmirić was at one time a member of the SAJ, he had to leave the unit for good reason and is not suitable to head it.”
A rose on the neck
Žmirić is a former member of the notorious Special Operations Unit of the State Security Department, as evidenced not only by official documentation but also by the rose tattoo on his neck (the same tattoo is worn by Milorad Ulemek, as well as several JSO members close to him). After that unit was disbanded, he transferred to the Gendarmerie and then to the Counter-Terrorist Unit (PTJ), which was also disbanded after its warehouse at the Lipovica base “self-ignited” in December 2015. At that time, a substantial quantity of expensive infantry weapons and equipment “disappeared” and has never been recovered. The following year the PTJ was dissolved, and some of its members moved to the SAJ.
Multiple Radar sources indicate that during his previous tenure in the SAJ, Žmirić failed an extraordinary security and physical fitness assessment. “Such assessments may be regular or extraordinary and may include polygraph testing,” our informed interlocutors say.
According to unofficial information, Žmirić failed a polygraph test, in other words he “failed” a specific question relating to his social contacts and alternative sources of income.
Investigative website KRIK recently published information that Žmirić became the owner of a villa in the Avalske doline neighbourhood, worth more than €400,000. The SAJ commander’s house is being built by Nenad Šekularac, brother of Aleksandra Biba Šekularac, who was arrested during Operation Sabre because of her close ties to the leaders of the Zemun criminal clan. Nenad Šekularac, previously convicted of attempted murder, confirmed that he is building a villa beneath Mount Avala for Police Colonel Žmirić.
In mid-December, Radar reported on the postponement of Marko Kričak’s appointment as head of the UKP due to information obtained through covert police surveillance measures targeting the family of a member of the so-called Vračar group. The principal reason lay in intelligence gathered after 3 November by the Service for Combating Organised Crime (SBPOK) through the use of “peripheral surveillance measures” on a family member of a suspected organised crime group member who is currently being sought. On that day, SBPOK operatives documented a meeting between Milan Kričak, father of JZO commander Marko and former head of the 4th Department of the Belgrade police (suppression of narcotics trafficking), and the mother of a fugitive member of the so-called Vračar group. According to unofficial but reliable information, their telephone communication during the first half of November was also documented.
Nevertheless, after several delays, Marko Kričak was appointed head of the UKP, while the then head of the SBPOK, Dragan Ivanović, was dismissed. Marko Zafirović, formerly Kričak’s deputy in the JZO, was appointed in his place.
It appears that today all obstacles – the rules of service – have been removed before the loyalists from the JZO, who now feel invincible. However, growing dissatisfaction within the police, as well as increasingly frequent bomb explosions and gun battles in Belgrade, suggest that this new era without rules will not unfold so simply, as everyone interprets it in their own way.
(Radar, 20.02.2026)
https://radar.nova.rs/drustvo/razbijanje-saj-jzo-rezervoar-lojalista/