Serbian politician’s plight casts shadow on Vučić regime

When Serbian opposition politician Nikola Sandulović posted a video apologising for his country’s war crimes in Kosovo, secret police arrested him and beat him up, according to his lawyers and family.

Sandulović claims that on January 3 a black van pulled up at his house and took him to the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) headquarters where he says he was beaten by around 15 government agents. He was returned the next day in a critical condition and briefly hospitalised before being transferred to prison and cut off from the outside world.

Sandulović’s legal team in Belgrade and London lodged a complaint with the UN committee against torture earlier this week, claiming their client was denied due process or proper medical care and that his life may be in danger.

The BIA confirmed that Sandulović is in custody on charges of inciting ethnic hatred, but denied that any violence was inflicted upon him.

His plight has cast a shadow on the rule of nationalist president Aleksandar Vučić, whose recent re-election has prompted widespread protests against alleged election fraud and a slide into autocracy. Brussels and London have asked his government for more information about the incident.

Sandulović, a former security agent, cuts a lonely figure in Serbia by calling for his country to recognise Kosovo as a sovereign nation. The former Serbian province broke away following a war in 1999, but Belgrade has never recognised its independence.

On January 2, Sandulović posted a video on X laying flowers at the grave of the family of one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which led the resistance fight against Serbian rule and which Belgrade has labelled a terrorist organisation.

In his social media post, Sandulović said he was “the only politician from Serbia who came to pay his respects to the innocent Albanian victims . . . I apologised and asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Serbs who did not commit this”.

Aleksandar Vulin, who recently resigned as BIA chief after being sanctioned by the US for ties to the Russian government as well as weapons and drug smugglers, has taken responsibility for ordering the politician’s arrest.

On Wednesday, the service acknowledged questioning Sandulović but said he was “not subjected to any unlawful use of physical force or freedom and rights violations”. BIA only wanted to “elucidate the context of Sandulović’s unlawful actions, which the competent prosecutor classified as a criminal offence . . . inciting national, racial and religious hatred and intolerance”.

The service said that reports of its agents beating him up were false and aimed at destabilising the security situation in the country.

In office since 2017, Vučić has been accused of growing more authoritarian and doing little to quell tensions with Kosovo, which flared up in September when a group of Serbian militants engaged in an armed stand-off at a monastery, leading to four deaths. Vučić condemned the attack, but also provided sanctuary to the leader of the armed group.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti last week said the attack was “similar to Putin’s on those who refuse to participate in genocide denial,” in reference to the Russian president’s crackdown on dissent.

In a parliamentary hearing earlier this week, UK foreign secretary David Cameron described the Sandulović allegations as “extremely concerning” and said he had asked the Serbian side for more information.

The European Commission has also called on Belgrade to explain what happened.

“We expect the rights of all citizens to be upheld. Any detention should be based on reasonable suspicion . . . and any credible allegations of violence should be effectively followed up,” said commission spokesperson Ana Pisonero.