Ponos Questioned by Police Over Sonic Weapon Claims
SRCE leader Zdravko Ponos was summoned to Belgrade's Criminal Police on July 1 for an informational interview over his posts about an alleged sonic weapon.
- Zdravko Ponos reported to Belgrade's Criminal Police Administration for an informational interview on July 1.
- The summons came at the request of the High Prosecutor's Office special unit for high-tech crime.
- The interview concerns his posts after the March 15, 2025 student rally about an alleged sonic weapon used on citizens.
- State authorities insist no sonic weapon was ever deployed, while the opposition calls the summons pressure on dissent.
Zdravko Ponos, leader of the Serbia Center party (SRCE), reported to the Criminal Police Administration in Belgrade on Wednesday, July 1, for an informational interview. The summons was issued at the request of the special unit for combating high-tech crime within the High Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, and it stems from his posts on X following the student rally held on March 15 last year.
Ponos was among the first to publicly state that a so-called sonic weapon had, according to claims that surfaced that evening, been used against the gathered citizens. State authorities have denied from the outset that any such device was activated against participants in the rally. That very gap, between what the institutions maintain and what the opposition posted on social media, now sits at the center of a prosecutorial procedure.
Why is an opposition leader summoned over a social media post?
The High Prosecutor’s Office is handling the case through its unit for high-tech crime, meaning the object of interest is precisely the content published online. According to state authorities, the claims about a sonic weapon were false and contributed to spreading unease among citizens in the days after the rally.
Ponos is not the only one drawn into the case. Military analyst Aleksandar Radic and lawyer Aleksandar Olenik, among others who spoke out that evening about the alleged use of a sonic weapon, were questioned or summoned earlier in the same inquiry. That gives the procedure a wider frame and stops it from being tied to a single politician.
Ponos himself attended the interview as a citizen, not as a suspect. At this stage, an informational interview does not imply a formal charge but the gathering of information. It remains an open question whether the prosecution will, after these interviews, decide on the further course of the case or whether the procedure will be dropped.
Panic, or pressure on dissenters?
Two opposing pictures have formed around the same summons. The authorities and state bodies insist this is a verification of claims that, in their assessment, caused needless panic, and that the prosecution is simply doing its job regardless of who authored the post. In that logic, summoning Ponos is treated as a routine investigative step.
On the other side, Ponos and Party of Freedom and Justice leader Dragan Djilas read the summons as pressure on dissenters and an attempt to bring the opposition’s voice on social media under control. Djilas commented on Ponos’s trip to the UKP, saying that citizens and politicians are being summoned over their stated views, which, in his words, goes beyond the bounds of a single investigative procedure.
Ponos, in his recognizable tone, also remarked on the speed with which the summons arrived, noting that the interview was requested within roughly an hour of his return to the country. Regardless of tone, the fact remains that an opposition leader stood before the criminal police over something he wrote online, and that is the point where two different accounts of the same event collide.
Is summoning an opposition leader over a social media post a legitimate investigative step, or a step beyond the limits of free speech?
