Seven Bor police officers arrested in Danka Ilic case

Seven Bor Police Department officers were detained on Friday, November 13, 2026, on suspicion of abusing and torturing Srdjan Jankovic and Dejan Dragijevic in official premises. Jankovic and Dragijevic are charged with the murder of two-year-old Danka Ilic. The arrests were carried out by the Interior Ministry’s Internal Control Sector (MUP) on the order of a public prosecutor at the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Nis, and the prosecutor’s office announced them publicly on Saturday, November 14.

Detention was ordered for 48 hours, so that period expires today. The seven officers are then due to be brought before the Nis prosecutor’s office for questioning, along with a criminal complaint. By midday there was no word on whether the hearing had taken place or whether prosecutors had asked for pretrial detention.

What are the arrested officers suspected of?

The prosecutor’s office says they are suspected of aggravated bodily harm combined with abuse and torture, committed jointly. The injured parties are S.J. and D.D., both from the Bor area. According to the statement, the offenses took place on the premises of the Police Department in Bor, while the two men were in custody on suspicion of killing the child D.I.

The statement identifies the officers by initials: D.B., M.M., M.R., N.J., S.F., D.P. and G.Z. Mondo gave a different list in its report, with the initials N.Z. and D.J., so the lists in the media do not match. The presumption of innocence applies until a final verdict.

Why is the arrest coming only now?

The part of the statement about earlier orders drew the most attention. The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Nis said:

“We inform the public that the public prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Nis previously issued orders to detain all suspects for the criminal offenses in question, but that members of the Ministry of Interior, the Internal Control Sector, did not act on the public prosecutor’s orders, about which we also informed the public.”

The same statement announces the next step:

“After all suspects have been questioned, the public will be informed of the actions taken through a statement published on the website of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Nis.”

The Interior Ministry’s response to the prosecutors’ claim had not been published in the sources we reviewed at the time of writing.

A second wave of arrests in the same case

This is the second round of police arrests in a related proceeding. The first concerned the death of Dalibor Dragijevic, the brother of Dejan Dragijevic, who died on April 7, 2024, on the premises of the Bor Police Department. According to Kurir, officers from the Criminal Police Directorate in Belgrade had come to help their Bor colleagues with the investigation.

On November 7, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Nis questioned eight members of that directorate, seven from Belgrade and one from Nova Pazova, aged 31 to 52. They are suspected of aggravated bodily harm resulting in death and of torture. On November 9, the Higher Court in Nis ordered them held in pretrial detention for up to 30 days. The prosecutor sought detention citing the risk of witness tampering, the risk of repeat offenses and public unrest.

What is known about Danka Ilic’s disappearance?

Danka Ilic, 2, disappeared on March 26, 2024, from the family property in Banjsko Polje near Bor, where she was with her mother and older brother. The “Find Me” alert system was activated, and the girl’s body has never been found.

Jankovic and Dragijevic, both plumbers, confessed to the killing to police on April 4, 2024, and withdrew the confession a few months later. According to N1, they say they confessed out of fear, after alleged torture. Their trial recently began before the Higher Court in Zajecar, and both deny guilt. The media do not report the exact start date of the trial or the date of the next hearing.