Serbia arrests police chief over abuse of office allegations

Serbian authorities have arrested the head of the country’s criminal police directorate on suspicion of abuse of office, while denying there are any links to elections held a week ago.

Marko Kricak, 42, was arrested on Sunday along with the police commander in charge of fighting organised crime, Bosko Sekulovic, Belgrade’s chief prosecutor said.

Prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic said the two 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.

The allegations surfaced in an investigation into the murder of a suspected criminal underworld figure in a Belgrade restaurant in May.

Milic, who was arrested days after the murder for failing to report the crime and helping the perpetrator, began legal action while in custody against Kricak and Sekulovic, accusing them of giving prosecutors incomplete and false evidence.

Kricak is seen as a loyalist to defeated President Aleksandar Vucic. The police chief was accused by student groups of “brutality” in the police response to demonstrations that helped bring down Vucic’s ruling right-wing party.

Last week they demanded his removal, along with that of several other police and intelligence chiefs, as part of sweeping reforms.

However, the prosecutor’s office did not provide any link between Kricak’s arrest and the students’ demands.

“This arrest has no link with … the result of the legislative elections,” Stefanovic told journalists.

The Student List, a student-backed movement, won a historic victory on October 25 in snap elections called by Vucic after nearly two years of protests, ending 14 years of rule by his Serbian Progressive Party.

The arrests come as Serbia marks two years since the Novi Sad railway station disaster.

On Sunday, thousands gathered in Novi Sad to mark the day that a concrete canopy collapsed at the city’s newly renovated railway station, killing 16 people.

The crowd observed 16 minutes of silence, one for each victim, as the students marched silently through the rain carrying wreaths.

“It’s hard to go back to the place where it all happened,” Dijana Hrka, whose 27-year-old son Stefan was killed, told the AFP news agency. “I believe justice will be served.”

In a statement, students said “tragedy” was not enough to describe what happened.

“Tragedy describes an accident,” they said. “But behind that word, one can cleverly conceal the word we are all looking for: responsibility.”

The collapse set off Serbia’s biggest protests since the fall of former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigned in January 2025, and Vucic stepped down as president in September to lead his party’s list, pardoning students and activists prosecuted over the protests.