Rade Bajic Ties Pegasus Attack to General Staff Probe
A prosecutor's associate at the organized crime prosecution told Insajder he became a spyware target because of the General Staff investigation. Forensic analysis of his device is under way.
Rade Bajic, the prosecutor’s associate who worked on the General Staff case, believes he became the target of banned spyware precisely because of that investigation. He said so in a response to Insajder published on October 20, 2026, a day after Citizen Lab and the SHARE Foundation announced that Bajic, along with University of Belgrade rector Vladan Djokic, was targeted with mercenary spyware of the kind sold as Pegasus. SHARE Foundation calls Bajic a senior prosecutorial associate at the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, while Insajder and N1 describe him as a prosecutor’s associate.
Bajic lays out his position this way:
“I believe I was a target of banned spyware solely because, on behalf of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, I was part of the prosecution team that conducted the investigation into suspicions that the Serbian government’s decisions of November 14, 2024 stripped the buildings of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense in Belgrade of their status as immovable cultural property, contrary to the Constitution and a number of laws.”
What did Apple send Bajic?
According to Citizen Lab, Apple sent him a threat notification on August 13, 2026, and a reminder on August 27. Citizen Lab treats receipt of such a notification as a high-confidence indicator that his device was likely targeted with mercenary spyware.
The difference from Djokic’s case lies in the evidence. Forensic analysis confirmed that Djokic’s phone was infected in 2026 with Pegasus, made by the Israeli company NSO Group, in a “0-click” attack that required no action from the user. For Bajic, there is so far only Apple’s notification, and forensic analysis of artifacts from his device is under way.
Citizen Lab also relays Bajic’s claim that he was removed from the case in November 2025 without explanation. According to the same source, he spoke against political interference in the case at a protest in February 2026. Citizen Lab writes about him in the past tense, as a senior prosecutorial associate who worked at the organized crime prosecution, so his current status is unclear from the sources we reviewed.
What case is this about?
The prosecution team examined whether the Serbian government’s decisions of November 14, 2024 stripped the General Staff and Ministry of Defense buildings of their cultural property status. The investigation ended with an indictment proposal that the organized crime prosecution filed with the court on December 15, 2025, against the current culture minister and three other senior state officials. Citizen Lab describes the same case as a corruption investigation into the failed “Trump Tower” project in Belgrade, which was meant to rise on the ruins of a site previously declared protected cultural property.
What else does Bajic say?
He builds on that finding and says the discovery is personally unpleasant for him:
“Personally, I find this a very unpleasant discovery. Especially bearing in mind that the Israeli company NSO Group, which produces the virus ‘Pegasus,’ has been stating for years that its clients are exclusively officials of other governments. The unpleasantness grows even greater when one considers that a buyer of such viruses must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for an attempt at unlawful surveillance of just one phone.”
Citing the unanimous view of the expert community that Pegasus and similar programs are “weapons of repression,” he concludes that “we live in a time of general violence against all layers of society, generated by the ruling structure here.” He goes on:
“Out of fear of the final and uncompromising application of the law, it has evidently decided to unlawfully surveil representatives of the judiciary as well.”
The response closes by recalling the Italian judge Giovanni Falcone:
“I remind you that the famous Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, who gave his life in the fight against the mafia, said: ‘We will know that the mafia has penetrated state institutions when the institutions themselves begin to attack the judiciary.’”
How many targets are there in Serbia?
With these two cases, according to Citizen Lab, at least 16 members of Serbian civil society are publicly known to have been targeted or victimized by mercenary spyware. Earlier in 2026, investigations led by the SHARE Foundation, with support from Citizen Lab and Amnesty International, found that at least 14 people had been targeted with advanced spyware. Snap parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 25.
Citizen Lab’s note on the two cases does not name who ordered the attacks, so Bajic’s conclusion about the ruling structure is his own. We did not find a response from the authorities to his claims in the sources we reviewed.
