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Serbian authorities have arrested the head of the country’s criminal police directorate, Marko Kricak, 42, along with the police commander responsible for fighting organised crime, Bosko Sekulovic, Belgrade’s chief prosecutor announced on Sunday.
Prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic said the two men were suspected of abusing their offices and failing to uphold their duties, “thus causing prejudice and serious harm to the rights of Belgrade’s former police chief”, Veselin Milic. Stefanovic was explicit that the arrests were unconnected to politics: “This arrest has no link with the result of the legislative elections,” he told journalists.
The allegations stem from an investigation into the murder of a suspected criminal underworld figure at a Belgrade restaurant in May. Milic was himself arrested days after that killing on suspicion of failing to report the crime and assisting the perpetrator. While in custody, Milic launched legal action against Kricak and Sekulovic, accusing them of supplying prosecutors with incomplete and false evidence.
Loyalist figure under pressure from two directions
Kricak had already been in the crosshairs of the protest movement that reshaped Serbian politics. Student groups accused him of overseeing a brutal police response to demonstrations that contributed to the collapse of President Aleksandar Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party. Last week, protesters explicitly demanded his removal alongside several other police and intelligence chiefs as part of a package of institutional reforms.
The timing is striking. On October 25, the Student List — a student-backed political movement — won a historic snap election called by Vucic after nearly two years of street protests, ending 14 years of Progressive Party rule. Vucic had stepped down as president in September to lead his party’s electoral list; he subsequently pardoned students and activists who had faced prosecution over the demonstrations. Prime Minister Milos Vucevic had already resigned in January 2025.
Despite the convergence of timing, the prosecutor’s office drew a firm line between the criminal case and the electoral outcome, offering no evidence of any political instruction behind Sunday’s detentions.
Novi Sad anniversary overshadows the day
The arrests fell on the second anniversary of the Novi Sad railway station disaster, a tragedy that originally ignited Serbia’s protest cycle. On Sunday, thousands gathered in Novi Sad to mark the collapse of a concrete canopy at the city’s newly renovated station, which killed 16 people. The crowd observed 16 minutes of silence — one for each victim — as students marched through rain carrying wreaths.
Dijana Hrka, whose 27-year-old son Stefan died in the collapse, told the AFP news agency: “It’s hard to go back to the place where it all happened. I believe justice will be served.” In a statement, student groups rejected the word “tragedy” as insufficient. “Tragedy describes an accident,” they said. “But behind that word, one can cleverly conceal the word we are all looking for: responsibility.”
The Novi Sad disaster and its aftermath — trials, resignations and sustained street pressure — form the backdrop against which Kricak’s arrest will inevitably be read, whatever the prosecutor’s assurances about the separation of criminal and political processes.