SERBIAN CAUSED A STIR IN THE VATICAN: Ljubiša endangered the security of the Pope’s inauguration, Police waited for him at the hotel!

Amidst the solemnity of Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration ceremony, held yesterday in the Vatican under strict security measures, a Serbian citizen found himself in a highly unusual situation. Namely, the police were looking for him due to a tourist helicopter flyover of Rome, which partly crossed over the Vatican.

Ljubiša Marunović (60), a Serb who has lived and worked in Switzerland for years, was in Rome at the moment when the whole world was watching the appointment of Pope Leo, and he could not have dreamed that he would have trouble because of it. Namely, as a business associate of the company “Yokohama,” he had the opportunity for a helicopter flight over Rome – which, unintentionally, included a flyover near the Vatican, just before the religious event itself began.

The flight that aroused suspicion

Ljubiša and another girl took the opportunity to see Rome from the air. However, unaware of the detailed airspace restrictions that were in place due to the arrival of church and state officials from all over the world, the pilot partially entered the heightened surveillance zone around the Vatican. He only found out what he had done a few hours after landing.

“The flight was arranged in advance, everything was regular… we had no idea that we had violated any prohibition. They just suddenly appeared at the hotel,” Ljubiša tells “Blic.”

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Investigation at the hotel

To make everything even more comical, he had visited the Vatican before the flight, and their hotel was located in the immediate vicinity, a few minutes’ walk away. When the police appeared in the lobby, he was in shock, but after talking with the Italian security services, the situation became clear.

-It was eerie. For someone to come to your hotel and look for you like that, I didn’t know whether to laugh or panic. It turned out that we had entered a part where we were not allowed. They took the documents of me and the girl who flew as well, they explained to us what it was about and what we had done – Ljubiša tells us through laughter.

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The pilot fared “the worst”

As he told “Blic,” the pilot received the most complaints, bearing the verbal consequences and getting the most “scolding” from the Carabinieri and security services who were also present.

“We got away with it, but the pilot had a serious conversation. We got out of it, but I wouldn’t want something similar to happen to me again,” he said at the end of the conversation for “Blic” through laughter.

The inauguration of Pope Leo XIV, the first American head of the Roman Catholic Church in history, was held on May 18 in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican before more than 200,000 faithful and with the presence of more than 150 world delegations. Due to the arrival of numerous church and political leaders, security measures in Rome were raised to the highest level.