Prosecutor’s Office Denies Alienating Itself from State

Branko Stamenković (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

The narrative that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has become alienated from the state has been deliberate disseminated to justify the recently-adopted changes to judicial laws proposed by ruling Serbian Progressive Party MP Ugljesa Mrdic, Branko Stamenkovic, the president of Serbia’s High Prosecutorial Council, said on Feb. 5.

“There has been no ‘alienation’ of the Prosecutor’s Office, but rather the opposite. [The Prosecutor’s Office] has completely followed all regulations and acts passed by Serbia. From the Constitution, through laws, to the strategies for combating various types of crime, particularly corruption and money laundering,” Stamenkovic said in an interview for the Nedeljnik weekly.

Commenting on the amendments to six judicial laws as proposed by Mrdic, Stamenkovic pointed out that, as a result of the changes, 11 of the 20 prosecutors working for the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime will have to return to their original offices.

“Certain important cases, as far as I know, such as the financial aspects of the Overhang Case, Jovanjica and others, will be left without the public prosecutors who took on and conducted all work on the cases so far,” Stamenkovic warned, referencing the case of the Nov. 2024 Novi Sad Central Railway Station overhang collapse and 2019 discovery of an illegal cannabis grow operation in the village of Jovanjica, when nearly 4 tons of marijuana were confiscated. Both cases involve alleged corruption of high-level government officials.