site.btaThree Arrested for Breaking into Ruling Party Office in Belgrade, Opposition MP Detained in Novi Sad

Three suspects of breaking and entering an office of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in Belgrade were arrested on Tuesday, the Radio Television of Serbia reported.

The SNS office glass window was smashed during a protest in downtown Belgrade on Monday evening. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic appeared on the scene of the incident and said that all damages will be repaired and described what had happened as an attempt at destroying "values to which we are used".  

In Novi Sad (Northern Serbia) on Tuesday, police arrested Radivoje Jovovic of the Free Citizens Movement, an opposition MP in the Parliament of Vojvodina, who took part in the blockade of the city's Palace of Justice, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reported. 

According to RFE, Jovocic was detained in front of a side entrance to the court after trying to prevent Prosecutor Slobodan Josimovic from getting into the building. 

Josimovic heads the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad and is in charge of a case on the collapse of a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad Railway Station on November 1, 2024, in which 16 people were killed. The tragedy triggered an over nine-month-long wave of spontaneous anti-government protests, spearheaded by university students, who occupied over 60 faculties across the country, accusing the Cabinet and the President of corruption and nepotism.

The police said in a statement that activist Isidora Celeketic had been arrested together with Jovovic. The two were suspected of "physically obstructing the prosecutor's entry into the court building during an unwarranted public gathering in front of the court in Novi Sad."

"Such actions bear all the marks of terrorism, as they seek to paralyze the government institutions by violent methods and instil fear and insecurity among citizens," the Ministry of Justice said, quoted by local media.

More than 100 persons were arrested during anti-government protests in early August, including six suspects of assaulting police officers and members of the Army's Kobra special unit in Novi Sad on August 13.

On the same date, Kobra member Vladimir Brkusanin fired in the air during a clash between demonstrators and SNS activists. A day later, he said he was forced to do so in order to defend himself and his colleagues.

The Director of the Military Security Agency, Lieutenant General Djuro Jovanovic, said then that seven Kobra members had been wounded during the riots in Novi Sad, including four who sustained severe injuries. The SNS office in Novi Sad was vandalized and set on fire during that incident.

Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic then announced that the Kobra members in Novi Sad had been on an official mission "to ensure the security of a protected person in accordance with the law" but did not elaborate.

The opposition and the protesting students identified that protected person as SNS President and former prime minister of Serbia Milos Vucevic.

During a massive protest in Belgrade on June 28, students called for early parliamentary elections and urged citizens to support them by engaging in acts of civil disobedience.