Estela Radonjic Zivkov Summoned Over Generalstab Case

Estela Radonjic Zivkov, the former deputy director of Serbia’s Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, was called in on August 25 to the Anti-Corruption Service of the Criminal Police Directorate. On the advice of her legal team, she declined to give a statement or take part in the proceedings. The summons followed a criminal complaint filed against her by the Ministry of Culture, through the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Radonjic Zivkov is one of the key witnesses in the case that the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing against Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic and three other defendants. That case centers on the stripping of protected cultural heritage status from the Generalstab complex in Belgrade, with an indictment filed in December 2025. The fourth hearing is scheduled for September 21 at 2:30 p.m., at the Special Court in Belgrade.

The complaint against Radonjic Zivkov, according to her own account, concerns an administrative procedure and a public procurement for conservation work at the Manasija Monastery from August 2023, as well as procurement for work at the Caricin Grad archaeological site. The criminal police had already taken procurement documentation for that year from the Republic Institute on April 22, one week after the second Generalstab hearing.

“As an expert who has spent decades defending this country’s cultural heritage, I refuse to be made a victim of political retaliation for testifying to the truth in the Generalstab case,” Radonjic Zivkov said in a statement.

The conservator ties her own case directly to Selakovic’s defense, which he presented at the April 15 hearing. The third hearing, where Culture Ministry officials testified, was held on June 10.

“At the trial itself, as well as in later media appearances by him and his legal team, it was announced publicly that the minister’s defense strategy would be personal and professional discrediting of the witnesses,” Radonjic Zivkov said.

In her statement, she also laid out what she believes the proceedings against her are meant to achieve.

“According to my legal team’s assessment, the ultimate goal of this process is my physical arrest just before the next Generalstab hearing, so that regime-aligned media can paint me as a ‘corrupt person’ and destroy my credibility in court,” Radonjic Zivkov said.

Students taking part in the blockades published a statement on the site blokade.org that same day, August 26, calling the proceedings against the conservator an act of witness intimidation.

“It’s clear that the only purpose of this express ‘investigation’ is media groundwork for her arrest right before the upcoming September 21 hearing, meant to silence a witness and mislead the public,” the students said in their statement.

In the same statement, the students claim an internal audit by the Ministry of Culture had already found that the 2023 administrative procedures were lawful, meaning that, in their view, the very process now being examined by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office had already been reviewed and closed within the ministry itself.

This is not the first time staff at the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments have publicly backed Radonjic Zivkov. When the criminal complaint against her was first filed, Institute employees said in a statement that it amounted to direct political pressure and institutional retaliation, a consequence of the Institute’s professional position on the status of Generalstab. After the indictment against Selakovic was filed in December, Serbia’s president said he would consider pardoning everyone allegedly involved in wrongdoing tied to the Generalstab case, a statement Institute staff say now shapes how they read the case against their former colleague.

The Generalstab case dates back to the finding that the heritage protection status of the complex on Nemanjina Street had been stripped in violation of the law, clearing the way for demolition and new construction on that site in central Belgrade. Radonjic Zivkov and Dubravka Djedovic, the Institute’s former director, are named as witnesses who, on professional grounds, opposed that removal of protected status. By their own account and that of their colleagues, both women now find themselves answering to investigators instead.

The Ministry of Culture had not commented, as of publication, on claims that the criminal complaint forms part of a pressure campaign against witnesses in the case against Minister Selakovic. Whether Radonjic Zivkov will face further summonses from investigators before the September 21 hearing, and in what capacity, remains unclear.