Serbia detains police officers over alleged torture of protesters in a government garage in 2025
Serbian authorities have detained a group of police officers over the alleged torture of protesters held in the garage of the government building in Belgrade in August 2025 — the first arrests in what has become known as the 'garage' case. The Interior Ministry said the suspects, who served in an elite protection unit, used force and threats against detainees on the night of 14–15 August 2025 'intending to obtain information from them and intimidating and unlawfully punishing them'. The detentions were ordered on a prosecutor's instruction, Serbian reporting says, and the suspects are held for up to 48 hours. Reports differ on the exact total detained — Reuters says nine active officers and one former officer; the ministry's list of initials, as reported in Serbia, totals nine people — and that difference is carried openly on this page. The allegations are accusations in a live legal process, not findings.
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Key points
- First arrests in the 'garage' case: officers detained on Wednesday over alleged torture of detainees in the Serbian government building's garage on 14–15 August 2025.
- The Interior Ministry's own statement is the source of the allegation's wording — force and threats to obtain information, intimidate and unlawfully punish.
- The total detained is reported two ways — Reuters: nine active officers plus one former officer; Serbian reporting of the ministry's list: nine people in all — and the difference is shown, not hidden.
- The suspects are suspects: detention for up to 48 hours on a prosecutor's instruction is not a verdict.
What happened
Serbia's anti-corruption protests began after the Novi Sad station canopy collapse of 1 November 2024 killed 16 people, and grew into the movement that ended 14 years of SNS rule at October's snap election. Allegations of police violence ran through the protests from the start, and the night of 14–15 August 2025 in the government garage in Nemanjina Street — where detained students say they were abused by members of the Unit for the Protection of Certain Persons and Facilities (JZO) — became one of its emblematic cases, not least because police told prosecutors that surveillance footage from the garage does not exist because it is deleted automatically, on Al Jazeera Balkans' reporting carried by Srpske Novine. The detentions come days after the Supreme Public Prosecutor issued a mandatory instruction for urgent action in the case, on the same reporting.
Both sides, in their own words
Both sides heard. Neither believed for free. Publishing a side's version is not endorsing it — the claim checks below are where verdicts live.
Side A · The case against the officers
- The Interior Ministry's own statement says the suspects tortured and intimidated detainees in the government garage on 14–15 August 2025, inflicting great pain to obtain information and punish them unlawfully.
- Student Nikolina Sindjelic, whose complaint named one of the detained commanders, said she and a colleague were seized, held for hours in the garage, and threatened; she now hopes everyone who took part will be held responsible (her account, via FoNet).
Side B · The former authorities' position
- Serbian students, activists, opposition politicians and rights watchdogs have accused Aleksandar Vučić and the SNS of political violence, pressure on media, ties to organised crime and rampant corruption — accusations Vučić and his allies deny (Reuters).
- No statement from the detained officers or their lawyers had been reported when this page published.
Independently verified
Serbian authorities detained a group of police officers on Wednesday for allegedly using excessive force against people detained during the anti-corruption protests in Belgrade last year, the Interior Ministry said. In its statement the ministry said the suspects, who served in an elite unit, tortured and intimidated several persons detained in the garage of the government compound in downtown Belgrade on 14–15 August 2025: 'By the use of force and threats, (they) inflicted great pain and severe suffering on a larger number of persons, intending to obtain information from them and intimidating and unlawfully punishing them.' Serbian reporting adds that the detention order was issued by the Interior Ministry's Internal Control Sector on the instruction of a public prosecutor from the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, that those held are detained for up to 48 hours before being brought before the prosecutor, and that these are the first arrests in the 'garage' case. The case reaches back to the protest wave that swept Serbia in 2025 and 2026 after 16 people died when a concrete canopy at the renovated Novi Sad railway station collapsed on 1 November 2024. Dozens of students and activists accused police of excessive force causing injuries and psychological trauma; police used tear gas, crowd-control vehicles and stun grenades against crowds. Student Nikolina Sindjelic said she and her colleague Stevan Zdravkovic were seized on Nemanjina Street on 15 August 2025, held lying on the garage floor for about three hours, and that a unit commander slapped her, struck her head against a wall and threatened to rape her — her account, given to N1 at the time. After Wednesday's detentions she told the FoNet agency she hopes everyone who took part will be held responsible. The protests ultimately brought down the SNS government: the student-backed list won the October snap election.Not yet verified
Nothing outstanding.Claim by claim
Why this label: The detentions and the allegation's content are the Interior Ministry's own statement, reported by Reuters (read in full in this pass) and in fuller procedural detail by Serbian reporting of the same statement (Srpske Novine, read in full). What is verified is that the detentions happened and what the ministry alleges — the alleged torture itself is an accusation in a live process, and the claim is worded that way throughout.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: The count is labelled Disputed because the two chains genuinely differ and neither could be settled from the ministry's initials-only statement in this pass: Reuters' ten (9+1) against the Serbian reports' nine (8+1). Žmirić's identification is Serbian media's reading of the initials, carried as such — the ministry itself has named no one.
On the ladder: credible sources conflict, so we show both workings. One side's own statement is that side's position — never proof.
Why this label: The protest background, the canopy toll and the policing methods are Reuters' reporting; Sindjelic's account is her own, attributed to her in the claim itself (via Serbian reporting of her N1 account and her FoNet reaction). Her allegations against named individuals are accusations, not findings, and are carried as her account.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- That the detentions happened on Wednesday, on a prosecutor's instruction, and what the Interior Ministry alleges — from the ministry's own statement via Reuters and Serbian reporting, read in full in this pass.
What we don't know yet
- The settled total detained — Reuters reports ten (nine active and one former officer); Serbian reporting of the ministry's initials list totals nine. The ministry has published initials only.
- The number and names of the injured parties — the ministry has released neither.
- Whether charges will follow the 48-hour detention, and what the detained officers or their lawyers say — no defence statement had been reported when this page published.
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- Whether surveillance footage of the garage night exists — police told prosecutors it is deleted automatically, on Al Jazeera Balkans' reporting; that answer has not been tested in court in the reporting read.
Why it matters
These are the first arrests for the protest-era violence that helped bring down Serbia's government — made by the state's own internal-control officers, on the state's own allegation of torture in the government's own garage. Whether the case now proceeds beyond detention will be an early test of whether the change of power reaches the security services whose conduct the protests were about.
Background
Show the background timeline (4)
A concrete canopy at Novi Sad's renovated railway station collapses, killing 16 people and triggering the anti-corruption protest wave.
Detained protesters are held in the garage of the government building in Nemanjina Street, Belgrade; students later allege abuse and torture by protection-unit officers.
The student-backed list defeats the SNS in a snap election after two years of protests.
Internal-control officers detain police officers in the garage case on a prosecutor's instruction — the case's first arrests.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
- Latest
Story published in Checking state as a brief from queue #1574 (The Guardian; worked from Reuters' report and Serbian reporting of the Interior Ministry statement, both read in full in this pass). JUDGE AUDIT: headline, slug and summary state the same thing — detentions over ALLEGED torture; the word 'alleged' survives in all three because the torture is an accusation in a live process, not a finding. Every number is traced: 16 canopy deaths (Reuters); the detained count is carried as a Disputed claim because Reuters (ten) and the Serbian reports (nine) differ, and the claim names both. Sindjelic's account is attributed to her; the former authorities' denials are carried as Side B. The hero is a labelled file photo of the National Assembly, not of the garage.