Nine active police officers and one former officer detained in Serbia over alleged abuse of protest detainees
Serbian authorities have detained nine active police officers and one former police officer over alleged excessive force against people held during protests, the Interior Ministry announced on 4 November 2026, according to The Guardian.
The officers are accused of torturing and intimidating several people detained in the garage of the government compound in central Belgrade on 14 and 15 August 2025. The suspects served in an elite police unit. The alleged abuse took place during anti-corruption protests in the Serbian capital. The ministry gave only the initials of the nine active officers and the former officer.
The protests grew out of a disaster in the north of the country. On 1 November 2024, a concrete canopy on a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people. Anti-corruption demonstrations spread across Serbia in 2025 and 2026 in the months that followed. During one period of unrest in Belgrade in August 2025, Reuters reported that police used teargas and crowd control vehicles to disperse anti-government protesters.
The political backdrop has also shifted. In a snap parliamentary election on 25 October 2026, the Student List defeated the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which had governed the country, according to the same Guardian report. A snap election is one called ahead of the regular schedule.
The detentions are a step in the investigation of the allegations, which remain accusations at this stage. Each of the detained men is accused of conduct the Interior Ministry has described in its announcement, and no court has ruled on the charges.
