BETA Editor-in-Chief Released by Police After Giving Statement

Vojkan Kostić (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

The editor-in-chief of Beta News Agency, Vojkan Kostic, was released from the Criminal Police Directorate in the evening on June 22, after he gave a statement as a citizen on the seizure of a cellphone.

Kostic went to the police at the summons he had received while reporting as a journalist from a police search of the apartment of military analyst Aleksandar Radic. The search had been ordered by a prosecutor's office as part of an investigation into claims that a sonic weapon was used against the demonstrators gathered at a protest rally in Belgrade on March 15, 2025.

Earlier that day, Radic said in an interview with BETA that the truth about the use of a sonic weapon against participants in the March 15 student protest in Belgrade will emerge only after a change of government.

Kostic said that all the media present were surprised by the fact that some pro-government media outlets had reported on the start of the search even before Radic came to the apartment, while neither the police officers nor the prosecutor were able to say how the information could have "leaked" to those media outlets.

After the search was finished, the police handed the BETA editor-in-chief a summons, too, to give a statement as a citizen in the preliminary investigation over the criminal offense of "preparing an act against the constitutional order and security of Serbia," stated in Article 320 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia.

The Interior Ministry announced sometime later that BETA's editor-in-chief was questioned because he was in possession of the cellphone of military analyst Aleksandar Radic, and that the object is "potential evidence and instrumentality of a criminal offense."

The Ministry claims in the statement that the Criminal Police Directorate did not hand Kostic a summons "for preparing an act against the constitutional order and security of Serbia while he was merely doing his job as a journalist."

The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade previously said that, in line with the law and gathered evidence, all who are found to have prepared, organized, carried out and then spread in the media and on social networks the same narrative about the alleged use of a "sonic cannon" will be prosecuted.