Zmiric and Vukovic Baka Questioned Over Torture Suspicion
Nine suspects are being questioned in Belgrade over abuse and torture in the Serbian Government garage. Citizen M. V. in the police statement is the acting head of the Special Detention Unit.
Nine suspects are being questioned at the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade over the abuse and torture of several people in the garage of the Serbian Government building. Among them are the commander of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ), Igor Zmiric, and Milan Vukovic Baka, acting director of the Special Detention Unit of the District Prison in Belgrade, Tanjug reports. When the questioning ends, the prosecution will decide whether to ask a court to order detention for them.
What are the suspects accused of?
On Wednesday, November 4, the Interior Ministry’s (MUP) Internal Control Sector, acting on an order from the public prosecutor of the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office, issued a decision to hold the suspects for up to 48 hours. Eight police officers and one citizen who was a police employee at the time of the offense were detained. In its statement, MUP identifies them only by initials and age:
- I. Z. (47), the SAJ commander Igor Zmiric
- B. J. (48)
- D. V. (48)
- J. O. (43)
- V. L. (48)
- N. D. (50)
- N. F. (53)
- Z. V. (54)
- M. V. (48), a citizen and former police officer
They are suspected of abuse and torture. According to the MUP statement, the offense took place on the night between August 14 and 15, 2025, from about 10:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., in the garage of the Government of the Republic of Serbia building on Nemanjina Street. The statement says the suspects acted as co-perpetrators and as officials of the Unit for the Protection of Designated Persons and Facilities (JZO), and the prosecution suspects that they
by using force and threats, inflicted great pain and severe suffering on a number of injured persons, with the aim of obtaining information from them and of intimidating and unlawfully punishing them.
This is a suspicion, and guilt has not been established. MUP said in the statement that the suspects would be brought before the competent prosecutor’s office within the legal deadline.
Who is citizen M. V. from the statement?
MUP did not release the citizen’s name. Tanjug and Nova report that he is Milan Vukovic Baka (48), who according to Nova is a retired member of the JZO. Nova adds that he previously worked at Interpol, where he headed a department, and in the Internal Control Sector, before moving to the JZO. Zmiric was in the JZO at the same time.
On the same day he was detained, November 4, police searched Vukovic’s office at the District Prison on an order from the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office. The reason was an anonymous tip that a phone had been smuggled into detention for Marko Kricak, according to Nova. Kricak is Vukovic’s former superior in the JZO and is in detention. Nova reports that he is held on a criminal complaint filed against him by the former Belgrade police chief Veselin Milic, over suspicion that he obstructed the investigation into the killing of Aleksandar Nesovic at the restaurant “27” in Senjak in May this year, and that he abused a suspect in that case. Kricak is not among the nine detained in the garage case.
What came before the questioning?
The complaint over the events in the garage was filed with the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office on August 26, 2025, by attorney Aleksandar Ivanovic, on behalf of student Nikolina Sindjelic, against Marko Kricak. According to Nova, Sindjelic publicly accused Kricak of beating her that night.
Vukovic’s name had come up in public before. The president of the People’s Movement of Serbia, Miroslav Aleksic, linked him in July 2025 to the arrest of that party’s councilor in Stari Grad, Mihajlo Maletic. Aleksic claimed at the time that Maletic was pushed into a Mercedes G-Class by a group of people without police markings, one of whom was Vukovic. He made the statement to the media, and Nova carried it:
“Mihajlo was arrested by Milan Vukovic Baka, a member of Kricak’s unit.”
That claim was made in July 2025 and is not confirmed in the MUP statement, which does not mention any earlier case.
What happens next?
Detention under the decision lasts 48 hours at most. While the questioning continues, the prosecution has not announced whether it will seek pretrial detention. If a motion is filed, a court decides on it.
