Serbia’s organised crime prosecutors have opened two cases into alleged offences against electoral rights involving the head of the country’s intelligence service, the justice minister and more than 60 other people.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime (TOK) said on November 5 it had acted on criminal complaints filed by Belgrade lawyer Ivan Ninić. The first targets Vladimir Orlić, director of the Security Information Agency (BIA), and several agency officials.
They are suspected of abuse of official position, violation of the right to vote and coercion. Ninić alleged BIA staff had been ordered, as a mandatory work duty, to collect pledged “safe votes” for the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) on official party forms.
The second complaint names caretaker justice minister Nenad Vujić, Mile Jandrić, director of the Administration for the Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions, and Milica Radonjić, a special adviser to the minister. It also lists some 60 prison wardens and officials by name, along with unidentified SNS officials and activists.
In that case prosecutors are examining suspected criminal association, abuse of office, influence peddling, vote-related bribery, unauthorised collection of personal data, negligence in service and discrimination. On November 4 TOK asked the interior ministry’s Service for Combating Organised Crime (SBPOK) to gather information and interview those named in both complaints.
Ninić told broadcaster N1 he held evidence that the wardens of all 29 Serbian prisons had been set quotas to secure inmates’ votes for the SNS list. He said they reported to Radonjić through a Viber group code-named “Štab”, or “Headquarters”, and that the material was set out in a 238-page complaint.
N1 said it could not verify the messages and that the justice ministry had not answered its questions. None of those named has been charged and both cases remain at the pre-investigation stage.
TOK said it had opened the cases under a binding instruction issued by the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office on October 20 on handling crimes against electoral rights.
The complaints follow the October 25 snap parliamentary election, in which the opposition Student List won an absolute majority and ended 14 years of SNS rule. Vučić, who resigned as president in September to run for prime minister, conceded defeat on election night.
Orlić, an SNS vice-president, is a former speaker of the National Assembly. TOK has repeatedly clashed with the outgoing government and Vujić backed proposals by SNS MP Uglješa Mrdić to place the office under the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade.
Serbia is a candidate for European Union membership. Congratulating the Student List on its victory, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU stood ready to support reforms on the rule of law, media freedom and the fight against corruption.
