Detention and Arrest Warrant Ordered for Aleksandar Radic

The Higher Court in Belgrade on Thursday, July 17, ordered detention and directed the issuing of an arrest warrant for military analyst Aleksandar Radic. In doing so, the court granted the prosecution’s motion in an investigation tied to claims about the alleged use of a so-called sound cannon at a protest held on March 15, 2025, in Belgrade.

According to prosecutors, Radic is suspected of two offenses, preparing acts against the constitutional order and security of Serbia and disclosing classified data, qualified under Article 98. Prosecutors also specified that the analyst left the country on June 24 and has since been abroad, which they cited as one of the reasons for seeking the strictest measure.

What is at the core of the suspicion against Radic?

At the center of the case is the claim that Radic was the first to publicly circulate information about the alleged use of a sound cannon against assembled citizens during the March rally. That assertion has been the subject of sharp political and expert debate for months, with conflicting assessments of what actually happened on the streets of the capital that evening.

The court’s decision rests on the qualification under Article 98, which covers acts aimed against the constitutional order and the security of the state. The legal framework is therefore considerably heavier than ordinary offenses in the field of public information, and it is precisely that fact which pushed the case out of the realm of media polemic and into a criminal investigation with an arrest warrant.

For the analyst himself, this is a turning point. A warrant effectively means that, for as long as he remains outside Serbia, proceedings run in his absence, while any possible return is tied to the detention measure the court has already imposed.

Persecution or lawful procedure?

Reactions are, as expected, divided along the government, opposition line. Part of the opposition and of the public sees the case as political persecution and pressure on critics of the authorities, arguing that the tools of the prosecution and the court are being used to answer inconvenient claims rather than proven acts. On that reading, the severity of the qualification is disproportionate to what Radic actually said.

On the other side, defenders of the procedure point out that this is a regular judicial process in which the competent court accepted a reasoned motion by the prosecution, and that disclosing classified data and acts against security fall into the most serious categories of the criminal code regardless of who the suspect is.

What is not disputed are the facts of the procedure, the decision has been made, the measure is detention, the warrant has been issued, and the suspect is beyond the reach of domestic authorities. Everything else, from the assessment of motive to the weighing of evidence, has yet to pass through a court process that for now runs without the presence of its central figure.

How, in your view, will this case shape the line between freedom of public speech and criminal responsibility in Serbia?