Sotirovski Loses Appeal Over 4.7 Million Dinars

Serbia’s Supreme Court has rejected a request for the protection of legality filed on behalf of Dragana Sotirovski, the former mayor of Nis, by her lawyer Miroslav Ristic. The ruling means roughly 4.7 million dinars remain frozen, two weeks before her trial for allegedly damaging the city budget opens at the Higher Court in Nis.

How the Money Was First Frozen

The case began on December 1, 2025, when the Higher Court in Nis, through its Special Department for Suppressing Corruption, partially granted a request from the public prosecutor to temporarily seize funds from several accounts belonging to Sotirovski and her now former husband:

• 75,217.86 dinars
• 2,700,000 dinars
• 683,740 dinars
• 10,000 euros
• 1,696.77 dinars
• 984.16 euros
• 25.76 euros

The ruling placed the money under the management of the Directorate for Managing Seized Assets until a final decision on permanent confiscation. The higher public prosecutor also sought an additional three million dinars from the couple’s accounts, but the Higher Court rejected that part of the request.

Appellate Court Releases Three Smaller Amounts

Both the defense and the prosecution appealed the first instance ruling. Ristic argued the money had been legally earned, from years of renting out apartments and family savings, while the prosecutor pushed to also freeze the remaining three million dinars that the Higher Court had earlier declined to seize.

The Appellate Court partly sided with the defense. It found that 75,217.86 dinars was the salary of Sotirovski’s former husband, that 1,696.77 dinars was a dividend from shares distributed to all Serbian citizens, and that 25.76 euros had been set aside to pay an internet bill, so those three amounts were released. It rejected the rest of the appeal as unfounded, leaving roughly 4.7 million dinars frozen. The Appellate Court also turned down the prosecution’s request for the additional three million dinars.

Supreme Court: Rejected for Her, Dismissed for Her Husband

Ristic then turned to the Supreme Court of Serbia with a request for the protection of legality, asking that the Appellate Court’s ruling be overturned or amended so that assets acquired before the period covered by the charges against Sotirovski would not be subject to seizure. He argued the Nis courts had labeled all the assets “suspicious” without distinction and that the Appellate Court had ignored documentation the defense had submitted.

The Supreme Court found that the arguments in the request did not demonstrate a violation of the law and rejected the part concerning Sotirovski as unfounded. It dismissed the part concerning her husband, explaining that only the supreme public prosecutor or a defendant through counsel may file that legal remedy, and since Sotirovski’s husband is not a defendant in this case, he has no standing to file it.

The Indictment and the Arrest

Sotirovski is charged with prolonged abuse of office, which carries a prison sentence of two to twelve years. According to the indictment, she damaged the city budget by around 250 million dinars and secured roughly 112 million dinars in property benefit for herself. She was arrested on February 21, 2025, at the Presevo border crossing while returning from Greece, and remained in custody until December, when that measure was replaced with a ban on leaving her home.

In May 2025, a second criminal complaint was filed against her. According to the Interior Ministry, she paid consulting firms, whose owners were arrested, from the city budget for services that were never performed, securing them a benefit of 11.2 million dinars.

Trial Set to Open September 30

The main hearing was originally scheduled for June 10, 2026, but the defense had it postponed by requesting the recusal of the entire Nis judiciary, arguing that media pressure made a fair trial impossible. A request to move the case to Belgrade or Kragujevac was denied. Sotirovski was also summoned to court on September 2, but did not appear; Ristic attributed her absence to poor health.

Sources do not fully agree on what exactly was postponed at each step. Nova.rs describes a trial that has been postponed twice, while N1 ties the same events, the recusal request and the September 2 no show, to a preliminary hearing that, according to that outlet, preceded the main hearing. The two outlets also diverge on the December freeze order: Nova.rs, which had access to the court rulings, cites precise amounts down to the decimal, while N1 reports the same items in rounded figures, 2.7 million dinars instead of 2,700,000, for instance, and does not mention either the Appellate Court’s or the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The trial before the Higher Court in Nis is now scheduled to open on September 30, 2026.