Officers from the Anti-Corruption Department of the Criminal Police Directorate raided the University of Belgrade Rectorate offices on Tuesday as part of the probe of a student’s death, seizing servers and other equipment used to store surveillance camera recordings.
The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade it asked the Anti-Corruption Department to collect evidence after a 25-year-old woman student died after falling through a fifth-floor window at the Faculty of Philosophy on the night of March 26.
The raid sparked suspicions, as it happened amid continuing political tensions following more than a year of student-led anti-government protests, as well as repeated declarations by the government that it will remove university faculties’ legal autonomy, and claims by officials that senior university staff were to blame for the student’s death.
The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade stated that it requested the raid and the seizure of electronic equipment on suspicion that the criminal offences of negligence and abuse of official position had been committed.
The University of Belgrade argued however that items were seized that have no connection to the case, N1 reported.
“The University of Belgrade respects the law and cooperates with the relevant authorities. However, our openness and willingness to cooperate in order to establish the truth are clearly being abused,” it said in a statement.
It claimed that the incident was being used for political motives and condemned what it called a “shameless campaign” by tabloid media.
After the news of the student’s death became public last Friday, pro-government tabloid launched what appeared to be a campaign to discredit the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Djokic, and the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Danijel Sinani.
In live programmes and online reports by Informer and other pro-government tabloids, it was claimed that Djokic and Sinani were responsible for the student’s death due to inadequate security at university faculties.
Djokic and Sinani had expressed support for students who have been protesting against the government for more than a year since the Novi Sad railway station disaster, in which 16 people died. In one of its headlines, Informer used the same slogan previously used by protesters to target the two senior academics: “Djokic and Sinani – your hands are bloody.”
The accusations were picked up by Education Minister Dejan Vuk Stankovic, who on Sunday told public broadcaster RTS that the ministry of Education must “take over the baton” in managing faculties from negligent deans, in order to protect students.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg, because the tragedy is a sad culmination of everything that has been happening from the end of 2024 until today. We have turned institutions of higher education into platforms for political activity by part of the academic elite led by Rector Vladan Djokic, who has positioned himself as a political leader,” Stankovic said.
Rector Djokic has said that the authorities are staging an “attack on the university”, which he claimed they see “as a threat, as an opponent”.
Parliament speaker Ana Brnabic has also accused deans and the rector of being responsible for the student’s death.
Opposition MP Djordje Pavicevic, who is a professor at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Political Sciences, told Beta news agency on Tuesday that Brnabic was trying to insinuate that “there is allegedly a causal link between what the student movement has been doing over the past year and the tragedy at the Faculty of Philosophy”.
Andreas von Beckerath, the EU’s ambassador to Serbia, on Tuesday urged everyone involved in the situation to “refrain from politicising, instrumentalising this very tragic incident”. He also told news agency Fonet that the media should “show respect” in covering the story.