Serbia arrests criminal police chief on abuse-of-office charges after Vucic election defeat

Serbia has arrested Marko Kricak, head of the country's criminal police directorate, on charges of abuse of office, state media reported on Sunday.

Kricak, 42, is accused of suppressing and manipulating an investigation into the May killing of a suspected criminal underworld figure at a Belgrade restaurant. He had been appointed to lead the Serbian Criminal Police at the end of 2023.

The arrest follows the October 25 parliamentary elections in which the right-wing populist camp of former president Aleksandar Vucic was defeated by the opposition Student List. Kricak was widely regarded as a Vucic loyalist. Student groups had previously accused him of brutality in the police response to peaceful anti-Vucic demonstrations, and his removal had been one of their explicit demands.

Belgrade chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic denied any link between the election result and the arrest. "This arrest has no link with ... the result of the legislative elections," he told journalists. The case is nonetheless being read as a signal that the institutional apparatus built around Vucic is beginning to erode.

Kricak previously worked as a car salesman before joining Serbia's domestic intelligence agency, the BIA. In July 2023 he was appointed commander of the police personal protection unit (JZO), in which role student groups alleged he personally led the abduction of university students, assaulting one female student and threatening to rape her in the basement of a government building in Belgrade.