Serbian officers arrested for using ‘excessive force’ against protesters
Ten suspects are accused of abusing and torturing several people in the garage of a government compound in Belgrade.
Key points
- Nine active Serbian police officers and one former officer were arrested over excessive force against protesters.
- The interior ministry says suspects abused and tortured people in a Belgrade garage in August 2025.
- Protests began after 16 people died in a Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse in November 2024.
Nine serving Serbian police officers and one former officer have been arrested over accusations that they used excessive force against students during protests last year, Al Jazeera reports. The Serbian Ministry of Interior announced the arrests on Wednesday.
The ministry alleges the suspects abused and tortured several people in the garage of a government compound in Belgrade in August 2025. It said they were on duty at the time.
What the ministry alleges
In a statement, the ministry said the suspects "used force and threats to inflict severe pain and suffering on several injured people, in order to obtain information, intimidate and unlawfully punish them".
The ministry released only the initials of the suspects but said they served in an elite unit. State broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia reported that Igor Zmiric, commander of the Special Antiterrorism Unit, was among those detained.
used force and threats to inflict severe pain and suffering on several injured people, in order to obtain information, intimidate and unlawfully punish them
— Serbian Ministry of Interior
Background to the protests
Anticorruption protests began in Serbia after 16 people were killed when a railway station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in November 2024. The collapse was seen as symptomatic of alleged widespread corruption under Aleksandar Vucic, who served as president for 12 years before conceding defeat after parliamentary elections last month.
Since the vote, the winning student-led protest movement has demanded reforms within state institutions, including the police and intelligence services, and called on top officials to resign. Amnesty International's 2025 report on Serbia warned that protesters, journalists and civil society organisations "continued to face intimidation, harassment and unlawful surveillance", and said protesters faced excessive force in multiple cases across the country.
