Vucic on Sound Cannon: Prosecutors Say They Lied
In a video address on Instagram, Vucic commented for the first time on the prosecutors' finding that the sound cannon was not used at the March 15 protest, as the opposition demands a probe.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic addressed the nation in a video message posted to his Instagram account, avucic, on Monday morning, commenting publicly for the first time on the conclusions the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office (VJT) reached about the incident at the March 15, 2025 protest in Belgrade. The VJT had published its roughly 200 page analysis the day before, on Sunday, stating that the sound cannon was not used at the rally and that the panic among the crowd stemmed from a chain reaction which, according to the prosecutors, lasted 32 seconds.
That is how Vucic described the prosecutors’ conclusion:
Yet lies have short legs. The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office has unequivocally established that they lied about the sound cannon. I would venture to say it was the most terrible lie of the past decade, because that lie nearly triggered a civil war in our country.
Vucic added that the public’s reaction to the statement was exactly as expected. “Interestingly, the response, as always, is the same: these are media falsehoods, regime lies and all sorts of miracles,” he said.
The president then said that without that lie, nameless election lists without a program or ideas, as he put it, would never have gotten anywhere, and he urged citizens to think about who they are actually supporting when they sign an electoral list. “Imagine tens of thousands of people going to sign some list, without having any idea what they are signing,” he said, according to Kurir. He added that signatories often do not even know who tops the list they support, and that the same blind trust, in his view, is now being extended to the story about the sound cannon.
The Srpske vesti portal reported the VJT’s conclusion as soon as it was published. Monday’s news is Vucic’s address and the reactions it triggered, together with the prosecutors’ finding itself, within the opposition.
That is also where the sources diverge on one detail. According to the statement published on the VJT website, as carried by Nova.rs and N1, prosecutors announced they would pursue criminal proceedings against everyone who deliberately caused or helped spread false information about the use of the sound cannon. The European Democratic Party (EDP), however, reads the same statement in the opposite way: in the party’s response, it says the VJT is now considering criminal proceedings against those who reported the incident, not against those who spread falsehoods about it.
EDP Secretary General and Member of the European Parliament Sandro Goci said that “Serbia’s institutions must serve citizens and independently establish the facts, not submit to the interests of those in power.” He called for an independent, transparent investigation with witness protection. “Serious questions remain open. There is video footage, 113 medical reports and thousands of testimonies,” Goci said.
He repeated the same position regarding the VJT’s analysis itself, warning that trust in institutions is not built the way the prosecution communicated its findings. “Democratic trust cannot be restored by rewriting reality,” Goci said, adding that no institution can erase the experience of the thousands of citizens who, he says, lived through the incident firsthand.
On the other side of the opposition spectrum, the Serbia Center party (SRCE) linked the timing of the VJT’s analysis to pressure from Washington. Three days before the prosecutors’ statement, US Congressman Joe Wilson accused the Vucic regime of turning Serbia into a base for Russian activity, and regarding the sound cannon affair said Vucic is letting Putin “recruit terrorists, organize sabotage and torture animals” on Serbian territory through secret tests of sound weapons. According to SRCE, a bipartisan bill, the SRBIJA Act, has meanwhile been introduced in the US Congress, providing for financial sanctions, asset freezes and visa bans for officials who undermine democracy, engage in corruption, or assist Russia, China and Iran.
“This rapid response from the prosecution is directly motivated by the regime’s attempt to cushion the fierce diplomatic pressure coming from Washington,” SRCE said in its statement, arguing it was an attempt to convince the domestic public of the lies of the opposition and foreign actors before the question of the consequences of the announced US law is opened more seriously.
Neither Goci nor SRCE dispute that panic actually broke out along the stretch between Terazije and Slavija on March 15, 2025. What both sides dispute is how the prosecution handled the evidence, and the timing of the conclusion’s release: a year and a half after the event itself, and a week after Congressman Wilson publicly accused Vucic. Beyond Vucic’s own address, neither the presidency nor the ruling majority had issued any additional statement on these reactions by Monday evening.
Early parliamentary elections have been called for October 25. Whether the VJT’s conclusion on the sound cannon remains a campaign issue until then, or is replaced by some new topic, as the president suggests, remains an open question.
