The head of state of Serbia announced that everyone who "taints the badge" will be fired and arrested, after the arrest of the then chief of the Belgrade police because of the suspicion that he covered up the murder, reports Radio Free Europe.
President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić he said at the celebration of Police Day on May 31 that the police must "protect the highest values of society".
Line minister Ivica Dacic he stated that in 2025, more than 200 police officers were prosecuted, of which 20 percent were in management positions, and that this is the largest number since the establishment of the Internal Control Sector in the police in 2006. However, he did not state why they were prosecuted.
"The number may sound impressive, but without data on what crimes they were prosecuted for and what the outcomes of those proceedings are, it is difficult to assess the real significance of those data," Maja Bjeloš from the non-governmental Belgrade Center for Security Policy told Radio Free Europe (RSE).
The case of the former head of the Belgrade police, Veselin Milić, is not the first in which top police officers found themselves at the center.
How long is the stigma about the murder in Senjak?
Veselin Milić was arrested on May 15. Three days earlier, after a shooting in a restaurant in Senjak, Aleksandar Nešović, who was linked by the media to organized crime, disappeared, and whose body was found a few days later in a buried barrel near Belgrade.
A multi-awarded police officer who was also an adviser to the President of Serbia, is suspected of helping to cover up the murder.
In addition to Milić, three policemen who were in his security were also arrested.
After the murder in Senjak, the authorities announced a "cleansing of the ranks of the police".
"We have heard such announcements before after major scandals, but police investigations were mostly selective, and the results were limited and without deeper institutional reforms," Maja Bjeloš from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy told RFE/RL.
Dijana Hrkalović four years before the court
Photo: Tanjug / Sava RadovanovićDiana Hrkalović
After almost three years of trial, the proceedings against the former secretary of state Ministry of the Interior Dijane Hrkalović started from scratch in March of this year.
In three different cases, she was accused of influencing her associates to act contrary to their official position, and in one of them, she requested that the expert report on the phone of Veljko Belivuk, who was on trial for murder, not be submitted.
Hrkalović was mentioned in public as a person who has close ties with members of criminal groups, while she denied these allegations.
Maja Bjeloš from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy tells RFE/RL that the case of a former close associate of the then Minister of Police, Nebojša Stefanović, shows that "the police and the prosecutor's office are under strong political influence."
"It is precisely because of this that the public still has no answers to many questions about Dijana Hrkalović's connections with the Kavac criminal clan and her involvement in numerous murders of members of the Skaljar clan," he adds.
In the proceedings against Dijana Hrkalović, the former head of the Service for Special Investigative Methods, Dejan Milenković, is also on trial. He is accused of deleting videos, manipulating them and evidentiary material crucial to solving murders and street liquidations.
The third defendant, former Novi Sad police chief Milorad Šušnjić, was sentenced to four years in prison because he put the criminal Darko Elez under fictitious measures to protect him from investigations.
In addition to accusations of influence peddling, the former deputy head of the Service for Combating Organized Crime (SBPOK) Goran Papić, also a close associate of the former Minister of Police, was tried.
He is accused of having, in violation of the regulations, in 2020 ordered the return of the confiscated armored vehicle to Marko Miljković, a later indicted member of Belivuk's criminal group. He was sentenced to two years in prison and ten years banned from working in the police.
The Jovanjica case without an epilogue
It is about one of the biggest scandals that shook the security structures in Serbia, and for now there is no epilogue.
In November 2019, the police found an illegal laboratory for the production of cannabis on the Jovanjica organic food farm near Belgrade.
1,6 tons of marijuana were seized, the owner of the estate, Predrag Koluvija, and his employees were arrested.
Among the defendants in that case are police officers, members of the Security and Information Agency and the Military Intelligence Agency. The Prosecutor's Office accuses them of providing physical protection to the estate, ensuring the transportation of drugs and delivering confidential operational data and official information to Koluvia.
The inspectors who discovered the marijuana plantation at the end of 2019, the head of the Fourth Drug Department of the Belgrade Police, Slobodan Milenković, and his colleague Dušan Miti, were dismissed from those positions in 2023.
Proceedings were initiated against the third inspector, Milan Isakov, who also testified in this case, due to the alleged abuse of official position in a separate case. During his testimony, Isakov called Jovanjica a "drug factory of state services" and accused the authorities of trying to cover up everything. He assessed those accusations as a form of pressure. The trial is ongoing.
Maja Bjeloš from the BCBP told RFE/RL that the dismissal of the police officers who discovered Jovanjica "indicates that the actors of organized crime are politically protected".
The ruling Serbian Progressive Party denied the government's involvement in this case. They did not answer RSE's questions regarding these accusations.
Darko Šarić and connections with the police
photo: TanjugWork in the prison office: Darko Šarić
The connections between the police and the leader of the international criminal organization, Darko Šarić, were proven in court. In April 2025, Šarić was sentenced to six years in prison in the proceedings against him and his associates for planning the murder and discrediting the witnesses of the associates.
In this case, three members of the MUP were also convicted for aiding Šarić's criminal group, abuse of official position and disclosure of confidential information.
Relations between Šarić and the police were also discussed in 2014. Five heads of police departments were dismissed after Šarić named one of them in court as a "corrupt policeman".
The head of state cited their alleged interference in politics and the media, as well as their alleged contacts with the accused drug dealer, as the official reason for the immediate dismissal.
The dismissed police officers claimed that it was a staged media campaign by criminals.
Promotion after accusations
Police officer Marko Krichak is among the members of the MUP who have been the target of accusations.
A student, Nikolina Sinđelić, accused him of threats of rape and excessive use of force after being detained during an anti-government protest in Belgrade in August 2025, when Krichak was the commander of the unit for the security of certain persons and facilities.
Police brutality was also spoken about in public by others who, along with her, were taken into custody that day.
Half a year later, in December 2025, Kricak was appointed to the position of head of the Criminal Police Directorate.
Death in custody
For more than two years, it has not been established how the brother of one of the suspects in the murder of two-year-old Danka Ilić died in police custody in Bor, detained on suspicion of helping his brother after the murder. The police announced that he died of "natural causes".
After the weekly newspaper "Radar" announced that the autopsy showed that he died as a result of beatings, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that an investigation had been initiated by order of the prosecutor's office.
"If it is established that there were abuses and excesses of authority, measures will be initiated against those who violated the law and police ethics," they stated at the time.
What was established is not known to this day. The prosecutor's office in Nis, which took over the case, did not answer RFE's questions.
Source: RSE
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