Novi Sad Overpass Indictment: 13 Defendants in Three Groups

The indictment over the collapse of the overpass at Novi Sad’s railway station names 13 defendants, and its contents became known to the public on August 10. The Novi Sad Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office split the defendants into three groups, based on what each is charged with, and the offenses covered by the indictment carry a prison sentence of more than ten years.

The overpass collapsed on November 1, 2024, at around noon, in front of the vestibule of wing B of the station building. Sixteen people were killed and one person was seriously injured. The indictment was filed on September 16, 2025, but it only became final on June 15 this year, when the Novi Sad Court of Appeals granted the prosecutor’s appeal and overturned a ruling by the Novi Sad Higher Court from December 24, 2025.

Who Is in Which Group of Defendants

The division is not merely formal, it determines the legal classification and, with it, the range of the sentence.

• Goran Vesic, the former minister of construction, transport and infrastructure, his assistant Anita Dimoski, Jelena Tanaskovic, the former acting director of Infrastructure Railways of Serbia, and her predecessor as general director, Nebojsa Surlan, are charged with a grave offense against general safety in connection with causing public danger.
• The design side of the case involves Slobodan Naumovic, the engineer responsible for the structural design at the Traffic Institute CIP, chief designers Milan Jelkic and Ljiljana Milic Markovic, professor and technical control supervisor Milan Spremic, and Jasna Stojiljkovic Milic from the technical control firm Cestra.
• The construction and supervision side involves representatives of the Chinese consortium, Zorica Slavkovic and Dusan Jankovic, along with supervising engineers Marina Gavrilovic and Dejan Todorovic.

Nine defendants from the second and third groups are charged with a grave offense against general safety in connection with improper and irregular execution of construction works.

What the Technical Findings in the Indictment Say

The prosecution reduced the structure’s failure to a single chain of shortcomings. At the joint between the tie rods and the roof girder, corrosion developed in the prestressing cables, the only load bearing element of the tie rods. According to the findings cited in the indictment, 40 percent of the cables were inactive.

On top of that, the existing layer of unreinforced concrete and ceramic tiles on the underside were never removed, while new layers and glass with metal frames were added on top. That, the prosecutor states, led to a fracture in the connections of the cross beams and to the complete failure of the tie rods.

A Hundred and Nineteen Days Between Opening and Collapse

The indictment covers a period of unreported works from May 7 to October 15, 2024. Midway through that period, on July 5, 2024, the vestibule of wing B was put into use even though the technical inspection had not been carried out and no occupancy permit had been issued. Vesic, Dimoski and Tanaskovic attended the opening.

From that day until the overpass collapsed, 119 days passed. The whole time, passengers used the station building and the area in front of the entrance. The prosecution highlights that circumstance specifically, since the structure had opened only a few months before the tragedy.

Why Hasn’t the Trial Started Yet?

Because three prosecutor’s offices are handling the same case in parallel. Alongside the Novi Sad proceedings, a second case is under way before the Belgrade Higher Court, in which the Belgrade Court of Appeals has for the third time overturned the indictment against Milutin Savovic and Biljana Krstic from the technical inspection commission, and Slobodanka Katanic from Infrastructure Railways of Serbia. A third case is being handled by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and concerns the financial side of the reconstruction.

Attorney Jovan Rajic believes the extension of house arrest is a consequence of that situation.

That, I would say, is the result of the legal confusion created by three different prosecutor’s offices trying to handle the same case.

Six defendants, Vesic, Tanaskovic, Dimoski, Spremic, Gavrilovic and Todorovic, were returned to house arrest with electronic monitoring. The Novi Sad Court of Appeals rejected the appeals of the other seven.

The Defense Challenges the Very Basis of the Indictment

Attorney Vladimir Beljanski, who represents professor Spremic, argues that his client had no involvement with the overpass.

He never checked the stability of the overpass, nor was it mentioned in any way in the notebooks of the preliminary design that were submitted to him in 2019. Professor Spremic dealt exclusively with the facade mullion, the window frame structures, which still stand there untouched today, which were absolutely sound and stable, and on which he gave his opinion. On that basis, he cannot be held responsible in any way for anything connected to the overpass or its collapse.

Spremic spent more than 200 days in detention in Klisa before being transferred to house arrest. Milan Jelkic’s family states that he does not hold a license for structural design, only for road and railway design, and that he did not sign a single project in this case.

The indictment is now final, so it is up to the Novi Sad Higher Court to schedule the main hearing. When that will happen is still unknown, even though 21 months have passed since the overpass collapsed.