BELGRADE: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has for the first time used the right to pardon and relieved of criminal prosecution 13 deta...
BELGRADE: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has for the first time used the right to pardon and relieved of criminal prosecution 13 detained participants in mass demonstrations.
The president’s decision has been transferred to the Ministry of Justice for further procedures. The justice minister's proposals were sent to the presidential staff on Monday, January 27. At today's meeting, the pardon commission examined the Justice Minister's proposals and unanimously approved the pardon proposals. After considering the minister's proposals and recommendations from the pardon commission, the president adopted 13 decisions on pardon, says the resolution uploaded to the presidential site. Six students, four school headmasters, one dean, one associate professor and one school employee were pardoned.
The Serbian leader earlier noted that he was ready to use the right to pardon for the first time. He pointed out that this was one of the demands the protesting students were pressing for, but this step was "very risky, because you can't take justice into your own hands and, in case of similar offences, you can't grant pardon to some and deny it to others."
Since November 2024, anti-government protests organized by students and opposition representatives have been held in Serbia. The main reason was a tragedy at the Novi Sad train station, which occurred on November 1 and resulted in the death of 15 people. From the very beginning of the street protests, the opposition has demanded "the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and Novi Sad Mayor Milan Djuric, the arrest of those directly responsible for the failures in the upgrade of the train station and the disclosure of the contract with the Chinese companies [that carried out the work]."
On January 28, Prime Minister Vucevic announced that he was resigning. He expressed confidence that the ongoing student street protests had been organized and controlled from abroad with the aim of staging a government coup.
Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin has told TASS that the ongoing student protests in Serbia, supported by the opposition, were organized by Western special services according to the scenario of color revolutions, and the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic amid the street demonstrations would not change the authorities’ approach to relations with Russia, Serbia’s "ally and friend."
-News Feed
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