Novica Elek Killed in Surcin, Police Hunt Gunman
Novica Elek, 45, a man with a long criminal record, was shot dead in the temple in Surcin. Police are hunting the attacker, who unofficial reports say fled the scene on a bicycle.
Novica Elek, 45, was shot dead on Saturday, August 29, shortly before 9 p.m., on Marka Raba Street in Belgrade’s Surcin municipality. The attacker approached him as he was getting out of his car and fired a single shot to his temple. Elek died at the scene.
A team from the Belgrade City Institute for Emergency Medical Aid responded to the scene and pronounced him dead on arrival, the service confirmed to Tanjug. The same source said the killing in Surcin happened around 9 p.m., while that same night Belgrade also recorded three traffic accidents in which several people were slightly injured.
Vihor 3 Operation
Police launched a blockade operation called Vihor 3 that same evening and are searching intensively for the attacker. According to unofficial information, the killer is a younger man who arrived at and fled the crime scene on a bicycle.
Field reports say police are looking for a person who wore a black T-shirt, black shorts, glasses and surgical gloves. The attacker’s identity is not yet known, and police have not issued an official statement on the progress of the operation.
Who Was Novica Elek
Elek had been known to police and the courts for years. His name was linked to domestic violence as well as to some of the most notorious robberies in Serbia over the past two decades.
On April 2, 2016, at around 2:30 p.m., he ambushed his ex-wife, Tijana Sekulic, as she was leaving work. He fired three shots from a pistol, hitting her in both calves. He then threw her, seriously wounded, out of the car and fled.
He remained on the run for more than two years after that attack. He was arrested in May 2018 at an administrative crossing toward Kosovo, as he tried to cross the border using a fake passport.
The Higher Court in Belgrade sentenced him in May 2019 to four and a half years in prison for wounding his ex-wife and illegal weapons possession. The Court of Appeals overturned that verdict in December 2020 and ordered a retrial, ruling that the first-instance court had not adequately explained the decisive facts.
Sources differ on how the case proceeded from there. Some reports say it was left without a final ruling after the verdict was overturned, while others claim Elek was sentenced in 2022 to six years in prison for domestic violence, grievous bodily harm and illegal weapons possession. Neither version has been officially confirmed by the court.
Crime of the Century and Theft Allegations
Elek was also linked to the armed attack on a Securitas cash transport convoy in Belgrade in March 2011, in which 800,000 euros were stolen, an incident that became known in Serbia as the heist of the century. He was one of the defendants in that case, but the Court of Appeals acquitted him and the other defendants for lack of evidence in a final ruling in 2014.
Police records also placed him in connection with the theft of 83 million dinars from the offices of the DIP Trade company in 2007.
What Happens Next
The investigation into Saturday’s killing in Surcin is ongoing. Police have not said whether there are any suspects or whether the bicycle the attacker reportedly used to flee the scene has been found. The motive for the killing has not been officially confirmed.
