The minister could receive three years in prison Nikola Selakovic in the case of the General Staff. Today, February 4, the trial of the Minister of Culture, along with three other civil servants, begins before the panel of the Special Court in Belgrade.
They are accused of creating a document with false content through a series of illegal actions that served the authorities to build a building General Staff, damaged in the NATO bombing, they removed the protection as a cultural property and passed the lex specialis.
Selakovic_trial_02Nikola Selaković, accompanied by a lawyer, arrives at the trial / Photo: Filip Krainčanić/ Nova.rs
The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK), apart from Selaković, charges the acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Monuments, Goran Vasić, the director of such a city institution, Aleksandar Ivanović, and the secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Slavica Jelača, with abuse of office and falsification of an official document.
Meanwhile, TOK employees go out every day before the trial, around nine o'clock, as a sign of protest against the "Mrdić Laws".
Prosecution protest 02/04/2026. photo: N1/Ana NovakovićProsecutors' protest; Photo: N1/Ana Novaković
Brnabić: Senseless and shameless
The President of the National Assembly, Ana Brnabić, stated that the blockaders are not against the government, but against the state, and stated that the trial of Minister Nikola Selaković for the General Staff case is senseless and shameless and represents the overthrow of the state.
"I'm not saying that Aleksandar Vučić is or that we are the state. No. They are putting up a sign of equality. So, they are overthrowing the state under the pretext of overthrowing the government. Everything they declare as their success is actually the overthrow of the state®," Brnabić told TV Pink.
The regime knows what awaits it.
Belgrade lawyer Jovan Rajić tells the new issue of "Vremena" that Selaković is accused of very specific actions, but that he does not plead about it - instead, he uses the tactic that attack is the best defense. Vučić, on the other hand, demonstrates force and stands behind his minister, whom he lets "spew poison".
"The more important the screws in the SNS and the more they know, the more intense their defense is. First of all, because the more they know and the more they can harm the regime. This is how every mafia works, the more important the screw, the greater the damage to the entire organization if it speaks," says Rajić.
Bojan Pajtić, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, said that the trial of Selaković opens the door to the regime - how long will they be tried if they fall from power?
"The regime that thinks there is no end to it - in fact, through the initiation of this procedure, has glimpsed its definitive and inglorious end. No one is afraid of them anymore," says Pajtić for "Vreme".
Who is afraid of the case of citizen Selaković
Bypassed the experts
As the indictment claims, in violation of the procedure, they bypassed experts from the Republic Institute and the Sector for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and Digitization, in the Ministry of Culture, and sent the government a false proposal for a decision on the termination of the status of a cultural asset to the General Staff building, after which a special law was adopted in the Serbian Parliament.
This allows the government to demolish the building and to build a luxury complex with huge towers on that area, as foreseen by the contract signed by the Minister of Construction Goran Vesić and the company of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the US President Donald Trump, but it withdrew from the work, due to public protests and the indictment against Selaković.
After receiving the indictment, Selaković presented his defense in advance in public, although it was rescheduled for the courtroom, attacking TOK as a "blockade gang" and the previous director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Dubravka Đukanović, at the parliamentary session on Mrdić's laws.
She, like the director of such a city institution, Olivera Vučković, resigned, stating that she did so due to pressure because she refused to remove protection from the General Staff, after which Vasić and AI were quickly appointed in their place.
Defense
Outside the courtroom, President Aleksandar Vučić joined Selaković's defense, asking the prosecutor's office to indict him, saying that he can't wait for that and stating that he was the mastermind behind the demolition of the General Staff, announcing that he would pardon the other defendants.
Selaković's lawyer is a member of the presidency of the Serbian Progressive Party, Vladimir Đukanović, as well as in a number of politically sensitive cases, who advocates the abolition of TOK or its placement under the control of another prosecutor's office.
Since the initiation of the proceedings in the General Staff and Nadstrešnica cases, the government has been campaigning against TOK, before which they are ongoing, because they include ministers, which could lead to the narrowest political top and threaten its survival.
It could not directly subjugate the TOK through Mrdić's laws, as it did with the Prosecution for High-Tech Crime, but the government created the possibility to cut its prosecutorial staff in half and thereby practically block its work.
The Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime proposed that the court sentence the Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković to three years in prison, the State Secretary SJ to two and a half years, the acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments Goran Vasić to three years in prison and the acting director of the City Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments AI to one and a half years.
