The website of the Ministry of Culture is full of news about the activities of Minister Nikola Selaković, about his visits to institutions in Serbia, the opening of various events, the signing of contracts, announcements of new museums and other things that will make Serbian culture progress.
That news did not die down even after December 15, 2025, when the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime filed an indictment against Minister Selaković in connection with illegalities in removing the status of cultural property from the buildings of the General Staff.
Last post
And so until the end of last year. The last announcement by the Ministry of Culture about the minister's activity was made on December 29, 2025, when he signed a contract for the transfer of 84 million dinars to Paraćin for the Glass Museum. After that, nothing. It is true that from then until now there have been multi-day holidays, but there have also been working days.
On the first working day after Christmas, January 8, "Danas" published the indictment against Selaković, and then it became known that the main hearing in the case of the General Staff against Nikola Selaković and three other defendants was scheduled for February 4 in the Special Court in Belgrade.
Selaković is charged with the criminal offenses of document forgery and abuse of official position, and the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime is seeking a sentence of three years in prison.
In addition to Selaković, Slavica Jelača, acting secretary of the Ministry of Culture in the Government, Goran Vasić, acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, and Aleksandar Ivanović, director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade, were also accused. They are also charged with criminal acts of falsification of documents and abuse of official position.
The Government and Selaković's Immunity
As a member of the Government, Minister Selaković has the right to invoke immunity.
If he decides on that option, according to Article 134 of the Constitution, criminal proceedings against him cannot be conducted as long as he is under immunity. In order for the procedure to continue, it is necessary for the Government to make a decision on the removal of immunity at the request of the court. The government can reject that request and thus make it impossible to continue the proceedings against Selaković and the three defendants, and it can, as explained by Rodoljub Šabić for Nova.rs, delay the decision on the court's request.
During his frequent guest appearances on pro-regime media, when asked by journalists whether he would invoke immunity, Minister Selaković replied that it would be his pleasure to "unmask the blockade gang before the court".
Notebook page
According to Nova.rs, one of the key pieces of evidence at the trial on February 4 will be a page from the notebook of the defendant Aleksandar Ivanović, director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade, in which he recorded meetings and other actions related to the General Staff.
On that page, Ivanovic described the meeting held on July 10, 2024 in the Ministry of Culture, which is one of the key ones in the General Staff case.
"July 10, 2024, Wednesday 12:00 p.m., meeting of the Ministry of Culture, Minister Selaković called me to come because of the General Staff to make a proposal or opinion to him about the decision to delete and lose the criteria KD Zvao and G. Vasić (the new acting RZ) and he as a reference house to give an opinion informally. Present: Selaković, Jelača, D. Vanušić and I. The minister was delighted with my public appearances and studies on the termination of the properties for the buildings of the General Staff", is written in Ivanović's notebook.
And then: "Wrote in the form of a proposal only for the Ministry out of procedure. I personally brought the text of the proposal to Slavica Jelača as it would look like, and handed it over, she signed it, almost at 14:10 pm."
Selaković's new activity
Earlier, the media announced that in his testimony during the hearing, Ivanovic said that Minister of Culture Selaković personally requested several times that a proposal to cancel the protection of the General Staff building be submitted to him, even though the City Institute for Protection does not have jurisdiction over such a document.
Both the defendants, Goran Vasić and Jelača, said in their statements that Selaković put pressure on them. Minister Selaković denied the criminal acts he was charged with.
And instead of opening exhibitions, he is a guest on regime television, so it seems that this is his latest activity.
And on those guest appearances, he explains to the people that the General Staff is a ruin, that prosecutor Mladen Nenadić is working on the orders of embassies and foreign power centers, and that this is in fact "a fabricated case, in which there is no crime, but which had to be fabricated in order to show that we are a criminal and corrupt government".
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