Serbia detains Vucic's criminal police chief and party-linked banker after student election win

Serbian police have detained Marko Kricak, Aleksandar Vucic's chief of criminal police, along with another senior police official, on suspicion of abuse of office in a high-profile murder investigation. The arrests came after the October 25 early parliamentary election, in which a student movement running as the Students' List defeated Vucic and ended his hold on power. On Monday, authorities also detained Davor Macura, owner of the private Alta Bank — believed to be linked to Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party, its license revoked — who was allegedly caught trying to siphon away millions of dollars.

Kricak had been accused before, of personally threatening a female student with rape during the anti-government protests, but was not jailed over the allegations. The Students' List has not yet formally taken over the government administration, the security agencies or the army. What has changed is who the prosecutors answer to. Scores of top-level corruption investigations sat incomplete under the previous government — among them the probe into the November 1, 2024 train station tragedy that set off two years of anti-graft protests — and the election winners have called on prosecutors and judges to start doing their jobs or step down while they wait to form a government. The movement has promised an end to untouchable officials.

New complaints have arrived accordingly: suspected election fraud, threats and violence against protesters, journalists and activists, and, from organized crime prosecutors, procedures to determine whether complainants had been placed under illegal surveillance by the state security agency. Lawyer Ivan Ninic has alleged a criminal conspiracy involving a justice ministry official and more than three dozen prison wardens, and presented screenshots of online chats in which officials exchanged tallies of how many votes they had gathered from inmates. Vucic's party won overwhelmingly in Serbia's prisons. In Mali Zvornik, on the Bosnian border, police detained six people accused of issuing false residence papers to Bosnian citizens so they could vote for the former ruling party.

Vucic, now leader of the opposition, has kept up daily appearances on loyal media, accusing the movement of revolutionary terror and vowing to fight back. He denies any crime links and says he is not afraid of arrest, because there will be no evidence against him: he does not sign anything, and nothing will be found. A website called system breakdown, built around AI, feeds real-time information on post-election developments to a public that has begun checking the state on its own.

Vucic told Pink television on Sunday evening that the defeat is hard for his family and those who love him, but that he is ready for everything and will persist through anything. The same week, high school students caught their principal trying to destroy documentation.