Belgrade man suspected of opening graves and stealing gold

Belgrade police have cleared up several counts of grave desecration at the Mokroluk cemetery in Mali Mokri Lug, in the Zvezdara municipality. The interior ministry announced this on July 15. The suspect is S. N., 26, who was arrested in Belgrade.

According to the statement, since the beginning of this year he damaged a number of burial plots at the Mokroluk cemetery in Zvezdara by opening them, and stole gold jewellery from several of them. The jewellery in question had been buried with the deceased.

The case was handled by officers of the Zvezdara police station. A criminal complaint will be filed through the regular procedure with the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade. That means the suspect has not been detained, and the prosecution has yet to decide how the case proceeds. Until a final verdict, S. N. is presumed innocent.

Some media outlets report that part of the stolen gold was sold on to jewellers. That detail does not appear in the ministry’s official statement and remains unconfirmed.

What does the law say about grave desecration?

Grave desecration is defined as a criminal offence under Serbia’s Criminal Code. Unauthorised opening of a grave, or destruction of a headstone, carries a prison sentence of up to three years. Sentencing takes into account how many plots were damaged, whether the act was repeated, and whether theft accompanied the desecration.

In cases like this, prosecutors generally also weigh whether the offences were committed in concurrence. Grave desecration and theft are separate offences. If it is established that the suspect opened the tombs intending to take jewellery, the legal qualification may be more complex than the one set out in the first police statement. The final qualification comes from the prosecution in the indictment, not from the police.

Pre-trial proceedings of this kind also require forensic examination. Investigators must establish how many plots were damaged, when each was opened, and whether the traces match. Without that, the number of offences cannot be pinned down.

Why families find out only weeks later

The Mokroluk cemetery is not among Belgrade’s largest, but it has the same problem as the rest. Families visit a burial plot only occasionally, usually for a saint’s day, an anniversary or All Souls’ Day. Several months can pass between two visits.

The damage therefore surfaces very late. A plot that has been opened and then returned to roughly its original state does not look disturbed at first glance. Only a closer look reveals that the slab has been shifted or that the soil has been freshly turned. By the time a family reports the case, the traces are often already gone, and the time frame is measured in weeks.

Belgrade cemeteries have recorded similar reports for years. Most involve the theft of bronze lettering, vases and ornaments from headstones, which are lesser offences. Opening a tomb is rarer and harder to prove, precisely because it is reported so late.

What makes this case distinctive is its span. If it is confirmed that the acts date back to January, police have covered several months and several burial plots within a single investigation. That is the result of systematic work by the Zvezdara police station rather than of one isolated report.

For now, only what the ministry has stated is known: neither the exact number of damaged plots nor the value of the stolen jewellery has been specified. Those figures usually arrive with the indictment.

Should Belgrade’s cemeteries introduce regular patrols and CCTV, or does the responsibility still rest solely with the families?