Two interesting and seemingly unrelated news published on two websites in Bosnia-Herzegovina over the past one and half months have completely escaped the attention of the Serbian public, to such an extent that there are no signs of them being reported in any of the local media. The first, published on February 22nd on the “Zenica blog” portal, reports on the visit of the former president of the Football Association of Serbia (FSS) Slaviša Kokeza to the Zenica-based football club “Čelik”, where he used to play football. The second, released on March 12th, is the discovery of the Sarajevo portal “Žurnal” of the establishment of the “Prointer sistem” company in Brčko, whose logo is nearly identical to the one used by the company “Prointer ITSS”, connected to Igor Dodik, the son of the Republika Srpska’s President Milorad Dodik.
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They managed to unite on a joint opposition list called ‘Serbia Against Violence’ before the elections on 17 December.
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Zafranović is a laureate who “gives a part of his own value and significance to every award he receives”.
The first news, taken from the Facebook page of Čelik FC, and published without a photo, which is generally not the case with protocol information about courtesy visits, would probably not have been that interesting if Kokeza had not vanished off the face of the earth three years ago.
Ever since he resigned from the position of FSS president in March 2021 and left the country under the pressure of never-substantiated allegations that he conspired against his close friend, the president of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić (there were even talks of an assassination attempt, and Kokeza refusing to answer that question in a lie detector test!), as well as that he caused millions of euros’ damage to the country with his cigarette smuggling business (the amount of 640 million was mentioned!), there were no official information about Kokeza’s whereabouts over the past three years. As for the unofficial information, people talked quite a lot, but more about that later.
The second news is far more intriguing. It states that “Prointer sistem”, established on March 9th 2023 with its registered seat in Brčko and the subscribed capital of one convertible mark, arrived on the BiH market after Dodik’s “Prointer ITSS” lost lucrative deals with a number of big international companies, including the German SAP. The company’s business problems, incidentally, coincided with the sanctions imposed by the US Department of the Treasury against the president of Republika Srpska and members of his immediate family. “Sapienti sat” (“a word to the wise is enough”) – suggests the above... It is enough to add that the Banjaluka-based “Prointer ITSS” lost its SAP license in February 2023, one month before “Prointer sistem” was founded in Brčko, as a daughter company of the Belgrade-based “Prointer”, which had a license with SAP.
However, the connection becomes even more intriguing if we know that the registered seat of “Prointer” in Belgrade, at Dunavska St. bb, was the location of the Serbian Progressive Party’s (SNS) call center before the December 17th elections, that this company made 200 million dinars’ worth business deals with the state in the post-election period alone, and that it is common knowledge that the person behind it is none other than - Slaviša Kokeza. The connection between the Serbian and the BiH “Prointer system” is unquestionable, and not even concealed on the official website of the newly-established company in Brčko. Truth be told, Ivana Rajić is listed as the director and owner of “Prointer system”, both the one in Belgrade and the one in Brčko, and there are no paper trails that connect either company to Kokeza. Ms. Rajić denied any connection to Kokeza. Nevertheless, “Prointer system” is certainly neither the first, nor the last company in Serbia formally owned by one person, but whose real owner is someone far more powerful. After all, the Banjaluka-based “Prointer” also does not belong to Dodik – on paper.
NIN / Aleksandar Dimitrijević
The curious case of Slaviša Kokeza is becoming even more curious when it is referred to by the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić. In his interview with NIN in December, when asked if there was “anything questionable about Kokeza’s causing a 600 million damage to the state”, the president replied that “legal proceedings were underway against [Kokeza] over a serious amount of money”.
“As far as I know, legal proceedings are underway against Kokeza, but I have not seen such clear evidence for 600 million in that case. I did [see evidence] for a substantial amount of money, but it is far lower than the one mentioned in tabloids. But imagine this, there is a case against Mr. Kokeza, but against Đilas, who earned ten times that amount, no legal proceedings are ongoing”, said Vučić.
NIN / Aleksandar Dimitrijević
However, NIN received confirmations from the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade and from the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime that no legal proceedings are currently underway against Slaviša Kokeza. Neither the one for conspiracy and alleged preparation of assassination of the president, nor the one for the embezzlement of state money. He is a free man, not under investigation of government bodies, and all accusations against him, at least for the time being, are at the level of tabloid gossip. Including the ones for which Vučić claims to have seen “clear evidence”?!
All this raises several important questions – why has no legal action been taken against Kokeza in the early 2021 when he was faced with serious allegations and ostracized? If there was no legal action against him, why did he leave the country so hastily and didn’t come back for three years? And why, after all the allegations, the companies connected with him are still getting government deals?
The fact that official institutions are not conducting an investigation into Kokeza is, according to attorney Božo Prelević, just an illusion that the case has no epilogue.
“He was prosecuted by the party prosecutors, and sentenced by the party court. He already served a part of his sentence out of the country, in the modern version of Goli Otok, he paid a part of his fine, and was pardoned for the rest. He paid his debt, but not to the society, but to the party. And as for the official institutions that questioned Kokeza, they don’t exist for the people in power anyway”, says Prelević for NIN.
Kokeza himself was unavailable for comment, while both Belgrade- and Banjaluka-based “Prointer” refused to answer NIN’s questions.
According to unofficial information, Kokeza has been living between Miami and New York since 2021. There are no indications that he visited Serbia in the meantime, although the people close to him say that this option should not be ruled out. Now, he has appeared in Zenica, semi-incognito, with the intention of, as he said, donating money to the club of his youth. There was no pomp, no photo ops; the post on Čelik’s Facebook page only contained a photo of the stadium with Kokeza’s signature (?!), considerably different from the clumsy one that appeared earlier on social networks, the one whose authenticity was never confirmed and which was used by Kokeza’s opponents to mock him. Was this a way for him to send them a message?
Also, it is unknown if this skilled businessman and avid football fan has any other ambitions relating to Zenica except joining the club and making a modest donation. But it is a fact that, at least in the business sense, he hasn’t severed the ties that connect him to businesses in this region.
Slaviša Kokeza, born in Zenica, by his own admission, started his business career as a teenager, opening kiosks and other retail outlets. Even then he showed potential for quick money-making ideas. In 1999, he and a friend launched the anti-car theft devices “Lion Claw” and “Zeder”. As he said, that was when he got his first big money. And that money has apparently directed his ambitions further, towards politics.
He joined the Serbian Progressive Party practically on the first day, and in those days he was considered one of the most important financiers of the party. However, he made his first appearance in the media a little earlier, in July 2008, when he showed up with a bandaged head and a cast on his arm at a press conference, alongside Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić. Back then all three of them were Radicals. The story was that he was beaten at a rally against the arrest of Radovan Karadžić, when he tried to defend Vučić from the police. At the time, nobody could even assume who he really was; he looked like a prototype victim, a modest man from the people.
But it could be anticipated very clearly in November 2012, when he showed up at the stadium of Crvena zvezda, in the night when President Vučić announced that the government would take part in the rescue of this club. That was the night when Kokeza’s dizzying social and political ascent began. He was appointed Vice-President of the Managing Board, the position he held until 2015, when he was unexpectedly promoted to President of the Football Association of Serbia.
He held that position until March 2021, when he – according to someone’s opinion - overstepped the line, which caused him to flee the country.
NIN / Aleksandar Dimitrijević
In the meantime, Kokeza’s business portfolio grew into an empire. Speculations aside, according to official data, Slaviša Kokeza was connected to four businesses, but he left all of them. Two are currently in bankruptcy – “Srećni milioner” and “Best kontakt d.o.o.”, while the remaining two are still operating. In the context of this story, the development path of “Eurosalon”, a furniture manufacturing company, is particularly interesting – Slaviša Kokeza was the sole owner until 2017, when he severed all ties with the company. The current owner is none other than “Prointer system”. As for “Senior tim d.o.o.“, a wholesaler of computer equipment and software, Kokeza left the position of director in 2014, but the data of the Serbian Business Registers Agency show that he was the owner until last year. The state of his finances after all these business transactions is unknown.
Kokeza’s career went downhill in February 2021, when he was accused – admittedly, only in the media close to the SNS – of two major transgressions: alleged cigarette smuggling from Montenegro, by which he caused a 640 million euros’ damage to the state, and also alleged conspiracy against president Vučić, which included preparing his assassination.
Kokeza was taken in for questioning by the Service for Combating Organized Crime (SBPOK), and the media even assumed that his detention was connected with the arrest of Veljko Belivuk’s criminal group. The reason was that Aleksandar Kajmaković, the owner of numerous clubs and restaurants in Belgrade who was interrogated as part of the preliminary financial investigation in the Velja Nevolja case, said at the hearing that his business relations with Belivuk were the result of his acquaintance with Kokeza.
As the then Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said, Kokeza refused to undergo polygraph testing about the assassination of President Aleksandar Vučić. President Vučić was visibly disappointed by Kokeza’s decision:
“I don’t understand why a man I trusted would refuse polygraph testing, especially as he was told that he could answer just one, not ten questions, and if the key question of whether he participated in the preparation of my assassination is the reason why he refused to take the polygraph testing, I cannot believe it, to be honest, I have known that man for a very long time and I will never believe it,” emphasized Vučić.