BELGRADE – Saturday’s front pages of the pro-government newspapers focused on the “media attacks” on President Vučić and his family, “lies the likes of which have never been seen” and the “dirtiest weapon ever on the Serbian political scene”. All these descriptions referred to the story published in government-critical daily Danas on an old conspiracy theory that Vučić had mentioned last week.
The conspiracy theory dates back to at least 2014 and controversial tabloid journalist Predrag Popović, who wrote about the possibility that Vučić’s “real” father might be an ethnic-Albanian journalist Fahri Musliu, a former colleague of Vučić’s mother who has lived and worked in Belgrade for years.
The story has since occasionally been mentioned by Vučić himself, as an example of how his critics attack him personally and unreasonably. He mentioned it again during his appearance on TV Prva on 29 October, listing some of the personal attacks he had experienced over the years.
“And my father’s name is Anđelko Vučić and not Fahri Musliu. Shame on you, you liars!”, said President Vučić, not naming any person in particular.
These comments, which were not made for the first time, were picked up subsequently by the government-critical daily Danas. The paper reached out to Fahri Musliu for a comment the day after Vučić’s remarks. Musliu, who already wrote a piece on this topic for the same paper in 2017, said that he did not want to “comment on slander”.
On Thursday, 2 November, Danas published another piece, “‘The Albanian in Belgrade: Who is Fahri Musliu, whom Vučić says is not his father?”, as a part of its regular series of biographies of regional public figures. The article focused on what the paper described as “media torture” that Musliu has endured over the years due to the conspiracy theory. “The Albanian in Belgrade” referred to the title of Musliu’s book.
The ruling party reacted vehemently to the article, especially its headline. Prime Minister Ana Brnabić posted on X (formerly Twitter) on 2 November that the journalists of Danas are “uncivilised sadists” who are attacking Vučić “hoping that his family would not be able to withstand this”. Other members of the ruling party reacted with similar messages.
On Friday, 3 November, the President recorded a video message with his father, condemning “brutal attacks which we have not seen for decades” against Vučić family and “all families in Serbia”. He claimed that Danas published the article wanting people to believe that the conspiracy theory was true.
Later on Friday, during his appearance on TV Pink, Vučić once again condemned the article.
“You are ready to destroy every family in Serbia. You are ready to topple everything that is traditional, honourable and important for the citizens of Serbia, and to take us back to the past times when you ruled, when you were stealing and destroying our country”, said Vučić, equating Danas newspaper with opposition politicians, none of whom commented on this topic.
Pro-government media, including TV Pink and the daily newspapers, continued to focus on the story on Saturday as well.
Aleksandar Vučić
Photo: President of Serbia
