"Radulović accused only for being friends with Dačić"

"Radulović accused only for being friends with Dačić"

BELGRADE -- Darko Šarić addressed the court as his trial continued to say that Rodoljub Radulović aka Miša Banana was charged "only because he was a friend of Ivica Dačić."

Šarić, accused of being the mastermind behind a criminal group that smuggled tons of cocaine, also once again claimed that he was "framed" by a police general whom he referred to as Papaya ("Papaja").

"Why has Miša Radulović been accused," Šarić said at the Special Court in Belgrade on Friday after asking to speak, and then added: "Just because he was friends with Dačić."

"The fact that he (Dačić) now renounced him, that's another thing. Radulović was charged only for that reason. This is completely a political process," Šarić claimed.

Radulović, who is still a fugitive, is accused of involvement in the smuggling of cocaine from Argentina to western Europe, while Šarić was indicted as the organizer of the group, which numbered several dozen members responsible for the purchase and transport of cocaine from several countries of Latin America.

Dačić, now Serbia's foreign minister and first deputy prime minister, and formerly interior minister and premier, confirmed that he had meetings with Radulović, but denied he was aware of his criminal activities.

Commenting on the testimony given by protected witnesses, Šarić said those were "extracted," but that the police did not succeed when it came to him. "Neither politics nor the police managed to break me," Šarić said, alluding that he had been offered "the same status."

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