Serbia detains police chief Marko Kričak in Senjak case as prosecutors appeal and a student probe opens

A Belgrade court has ordered Serbia's criminal police chief, Marko Kričak, and one of his senior commanders held for up to 30 days while prosecutors investigate whether they framed a fellow police chief for complicity in a murder. Prosecutors said on November 3 that they will appeal to keep the two men in custody on a second ground as well. Serbian media also reported that the country's top prosecutor had ordered a separate investigation into allegations that Kričak beat students during the 2025 protests.

Kričak is the first head of the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP), the most important service in the police, ever to be arrested, according to the news site Radar. The arrests come a week after the Student List won a parliamentary majority on October 25, ending more than a decade of rule by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The incoming majority had already demanded Kričak's resignation. The prosecutor in charge says the case has nothing to do with the election. Former president Aleksandar Vučić, who praised both men in the past, says he is unhappy about it and expects affairs to be "invented."

This article explains what prosecutors allege, what the court decided, how the separate student-beating complaint has moved, and how politicians and analysts have read the arrests. Serbian-language quotations are translated by 567politics. Everyone named as a suspect is presumed innocent, and no charges have been tested in court.

What prosecutors allege

Police officers from the Interior Ministry's anti-corruption service arrested Kričak, head of the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP), and Boško Sekulović, head of the Crime Suppression Service, on the morning of November 1. They acted on the order of the Special Anti-Corruption Department of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade (VJT), according to Vreme and BBC News in Serbian.

The case grows out of a killing. On May 12, 2026, Aleksandar Nešović was shot dead at restaurant "27" in Belgrade's Senjak district. Police initially named Veselin Milić, then head of the Belgrade police and an assistant police director, in a criminal complaint as an accomplice. Prosecutors later changed the accusation against Milić to failing to report a crime and falsifying an official note. He spent 52 days in custody before being released and returning to work, his lawyer told the BBC. On October 13, the Higher Court in Belgrade confirmed an indictment against six men for the murder itself; Milić is charged in a separate case.

On July 30, Milić's lawyers filed a complaint against Kričak and Sekulović. They argued that the two men had failed to give prosecutors evidence that showed "clearly and unambiguously" that the complaint against Milić was untrue, according to the BBC.

The VJT now says there is "grounded suspicion" that from May 12 to June 3, by exceeding their authority and failing to perform their duties, the two men harmed Milić's rights. Chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanović said they "caused damage and seriously violated the rights of the victim, the former head of the Police Department for the city of Belgrade."

The office's statement, as reported by the BBC, makes three specific allegations:

• The complaint against Milić. Sekulović is suspected of drafting a false criminal complaint naming several people, including Milić. Official notes showed that Milić had left the restaurant with his security detail before the killer acted, prosecutors say. They also say the complaint left out the content of security camera footage, seized on May 14, that showed him leaving.
• Approval from the top. Kričak is suspected of orally approving Sekulović's filing of the complaints.
• Mistreatment of a detainee. Prosecutors say that on May 16, at UKP premises, Kričak and other officers not yet identified beat a man identified as N.L. They allege the officers struck his head, put a hood over it and beat the soles of his feet and his back with a belt. They say he suffered light injuries.

Kričak is suspected of abuse of office and of ill-treatment and torture. Sekulović is suspected of abuse of office. The news site Radar reported that four suspects in the murder case have said they were beaten by police, and that the restaurant's owner said in his statement that Kričak was among those who hit him. Those claims have not been tested in court.

1. 2025-08-14Student Nikolina Sinđelić is detained in the government garage; she later accuses Kričak
2. 2026-05-12Aleksandar Nešović is killed at restaurant 27 in Senjak
3. 2026-05-14Police seize security camera footage from the restaurant
4. 2026-05-16Prosecutors say Kričak and others beat detainee N.L. at UKP premises
5. 2026-07-30Veselin Milić's lawyers file a complaint against Kričak and Sekulović
6. 2026-10-13Court confirms murder indictment against six men
7. 2026-10-25Student List wins parliamentary elections
8. 2026-11-01Kričak and Sekulović arrested
9. 2026-11-03Prosecutors announce appeal on detention; media report an investigation order in the student case

Source: BBC News in Serbian, Insajder/Beta, Vreme

What the court decided, and the appeal

After questioning, at which both men gave their defenses, the prosecution asked the pretrial judge of the Higher Court in Belgrade to detain them on two grounds: to stop them influencing witnesses and to stop them repeating offenses within a short period. The judge ordered detention of up to 30 days on the first ground only, the court said.

On November 3, the VJT said it would appeal. It will ask the court's out-of-trial panel to amend the ruling and add the second ground, according to a statement carried by the Beta news agency via Insajder. The practical stakes are significant. Detention based on the risk of influencing witnesses can end once that risk no longer applies, for example after key witnesses have testified. A finding that the suspects might reoffend would give the court a separate basis to keep them in custody.

A second investigation over the 2025 protests

Kričak first became widely known during the 2025 student protests, when he commanded the Unit for the Protection of Certain Persons and Facilities (JZO). On August 14, 2025, Nikolina Sinđelić, a political science student, was detained with another student and taken into the government building's garage on Nemanjina Street. She said the next day that Kričak had threatened her with rape and abused her physically and verbally. The Interior Ministry denied it at the time, saying police had acted lawfully. Police director Dragan Vasiljević said neither the JZO nor Kričak had exceeded their powers, the BBC reported. The ministry appointed Kričak head of the UKP at the end of 2025.

Vreme reported on November 3, citing Nova.rs, that Supreme Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac had issued an instruction for an order opening an investigation into Kričak over the alleged beating of students and citizens. It said the instruction was the first result of a new oversight commission of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, created the previous week to review the work of all prosecutors' offices. The case, the report said, had sat in the prosecutor's office for a year without activity.

Sinđelić told the public broadcaster RTS that she had never been questioned about her complaint. Her complaints cover eight Interior Ministry officers. The ministry told prosecutors that camera footage from August 14 no longer existed because recordings are deleted after a short period. Kričak, for his part, filed a defamation complaint against Sinđelić. The First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office said a full internal-control report arrived on July 23 and that "an investigation against the suspects follows."

The prosecutor's case that this is not political

Stefanović, whose office brought the Senjak case, said the arrest "has nothing to do with the election process and the results of the parliamentary elections." He said his office began pre-investigation work in May, when, he said, the work of the prosecutors on the case was obstructed. Milić's complaint was then joined to the case in late July. "I appeal for the calming of tensions and respect for the rule of law," he said.

His statement matters because Stefanović is himself a target of the incoming majority. As 567politics reported, the Student List asked him and his deputy to resign on October 29, accusing them of selective prosecution. An arrest of a senior police commander by his office, days later, can be read in two ways: as evidence that the office is acting on facts regardless of politics, or as an institution adapting to a change of power. The record so far fits both readings. The VJT's timeline places the start of its work in May, long before the election, but the arrests came after it.

Vučić: "not at all happy"

Vučić, who now leads the defeated "Aleksandar Vučić – Ujedinjena Srbija" list, spoke on TV Pink on the evening of November 1. According to Telegraf, citing the Tanjug agency, he said he was "not at all happy" about Kričak's situation. He said he had tried, during the Senjak case, to warn those involved "not to wage a personal fight, but for everything to be done professionally."

"Just as I begged people to resolve their objections and disagreements in a different way, and in my time I failed to persuade one side, so I have not managed it now with the other," he said. He questioned whether it was wise that "the highest police officials were not even informed about the arrest of Marko Kričak."

Asked whether he feared revelations about his associates, Vučić said such affairs would come and that they "can always be invented or pulled out of context." He said there had been failings during his time in power but "a failing is not crime," and that he had "never engaged in crime." He added: "Just as Janša came out of prison and defeated them, I will defeat them even from prison." Janez Janša, the Slovenian politician, was jailed in 2014 in a corruption case; the conviction was later overturned, and he returned as prime minister in 2020.

How politicians and analysts read the arrests

Opposition figures who will form part of the new majority told the daily Danas that the arrests should be the start of wider change, though several added cautions.

Stefan Janjić, a lawyer and Srbija centar (SRCE) member of parliament, said he had expected an arrest much earlier, but that "the basis for an arrest must be evidence and legal conditions." He said the investigation should cover the student complaints too, and should examine who decided on Kričak's promotion. "An arrest is not proof of guilt, just as an office must not be protection from responsibility," he said. "If it all ends with replacing one set of politically suitable cadres with another, the systemic problem will remain."

Danijela Nestorović of the Ekološki ustanak party said she was struck by "how quickly institutions start working" after Vučić's government lost its political footing. She said prosecutors and police chiefs "are not relieved of responsibility because they had a political protector," and argued that an investigation "must reach the top, and not end with a few sacrificed officials."

Aleksandar Ivanović, a lawyer and Narodni pokret Srbije (NPS) member of parliament, noted that Kričak was arrested by UKP officers he had commanded until the day before. He said his party had filed a criminal complaint over Sinđelić. Slavica Radovanović, a retired police colonel and member of parliament, said the case should be taken over by the prosecutor's office for organized crime. Srđan Milivojević, leader of the Democratic Party, said he expected more arrests of former officials: "We have won freedom, it is time for justice."

Predrag Petrović, research director at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, urged caution. He noted that the VJT's chief prosecutor is a cadre of the former government, and that an arrest by itself does not mean detention, let alone a conviction. He pointed to the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija as a case showing that only a final verdict shows whether justice has been done. He said the more important thing to watch was whether "old structures" find footholds inside the incoming government. In a separate interview with N1 on November 2, he said that "old structures are trying to build bridges to the new authorities in order to keep their positions or ease their departure." He argued that people now in senior security posts cannot be trusted because they rose in a wave of political loyalists. He called for new leaders "from top to bottom," a prosecutorial police force and reform of the whole security and intelligence system.

What the arrests do and do not show

Three points can be separated. First, the specific allegations rest on prosecutors' readings of official notes, camera footage and a detainee's account. None has been tested in court, and both suspects gave defenses whose content has not been published. Second, the claim that the case is unrelated to the election is supported by the documented timeline: the alleged conduct ran from May to June, and Milić's complaint was filed in July. Whether the timing of the arrest was influenced by the change of power cannot be established from the public record. Third, Vučić's description of a "personal fight" between police factions and the opposition's description of overdue accountability are interpretations. Both are compatible with the facts so far.

Serbia's transition is moving on several tracks at once. The preliminary results gave the Student List a clear majority, and the new assembly has yet to be constituted. Elsewhere in the region, voters in Bulgaria have just elected a new president. For how 567politics reports criminal allegations, see our methodology and editorial standards.

The next steps in the case

The court's out-of-trial panel must rule on the prosecution's appeal. The 30-day detention can be extended by the court if prosecutors ask. Prosecutors must decide whether to open a formal investigation and, later, whether to indict. Separately, the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office is expected to act on Dolovac's instruction in the student case. The new government's choice of interior minister and police director, once the assembly is constituted, will shape who leads the UKP while its chief is in custody.

Differing perspectives

What do the arrests of criminal police chief Marko Kričak and commander Boško Sekulović mean for Serbia's police and prosecutors?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• A lawful case unrelated to the election

  Who holds it: Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor Nenad Stefanović and his office

  The prosecutor's office argues that the arrests rest on grounded suspicion that the two officers exceeded their authority between May and June 2026 and harmed the rights of former Belgrade police chief Veselin Milić. It says its pre-investigation work began in May, before the election, that it acts only under the constitution and law, and it appeals for calm and respect for the rule of law.

  In their words: Vreme (statement by Nenad Stefanović) ↗

• A regrettable personal feud open to misuse

  Who holds it: Former president Aleksandar Vučić, leader of the Aleksandar Vučić – Ujedinjena Srbija list

  Vučić argues that he urged the officers involved in the Senjak case not to wage a personal fight and to act professionally, and he says he regrets the outcome. He questions why the most senior police officials were not told of the arrest. He says affairs involving his associates can be invented or taken out of context, and that failings in politics are not crimes.

  In their words: Telegraf (Tanjug) ↗

• Only a beginning, with old structures still in place

  Who holds it: Predrag Petrović, Belgrade Centre for Security Policy

  Petrović argues that the arrests show an informal power system unraveling, but that old structures are building bridges to the new authorities to keep their posts. He says current security chiefs rose as political loyalists and cannot be trusted, and calls for new leaders from top to bottom, a prosecutorial police force and reform of the whole security system.

  In their words: N1 (interview with Predrag Petrović) ↗

• The start of wider accountability

  Who holds it: Incoming majority lawmakers including Stefan Janjić (SRCE), Danijela Nestorović (Ekološki ustanak) and Aleksandar Ivanović (NPS)

  They argue that the arrests should begin a broader overhaul of the police and security services and that investigators should examine complaints about the treatment of students, who approved Kričak's promotion and who may have covered up abuses. They say responsibility must be proven individually and must reach those who gave orders, not stop with a few officials.

  In their words: Danas ↗