PM says "others should be worried about Šarić"

PM says "others should be worried about Šarić"

BELGRADE -- PM and SPS leader Ivica Dačić says he "cannot wait for Darko Šarić to be arrested" so that all those who collaborated with him could also be "processed."

"In that case, many others should be concerned, not me," Dačić told reporters at the private Megatrend University, where he attended an event to mark 166 years since the publication of the Communist Manifesto.

His statement came after his former cabinet chief, Branko Lazarević, was questioned on suspicion that he had ties with the fugitive, on trial in absentia for masterminding cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe.

Dačić said that his first deputy in the government and SNS leader Aleksandar Vučić "has nothing to do with the initiation of the Lazarević case," nor with the timing of the events.

"This case should be deprived of any political angle. It does not in any way adversely affect my relationships with the SNS and Aleksandar Vučić," he told reporters.

"I wish to say this in order to avoid unnecessary quarrels between the SNS and the SPS," Dačić continued, and appealed to all politicians, his colleagues in the party, coalition parties, including United Serbia (JS) leader Dragan Marković Palma, "not to bring in political elements to the whole case."

Marković said in a statement that the case was proof that "nobody is untouchable in Serbia," and that his comments made earlier in the day were "about previous governments, not the current one."

"Prime Minister Ivica Dačić, who is also minister of internal affairs, and First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, who is in charge of the fight against organized crime and corruption...