Student Ticket Candidate: Witnesses in General Staff Case Face Immense Pressure

General Staff building case (BETAPHOTO/MILAN ILIC)

On Sept. 21, a group of people rallied in front of the Special Court in Belgrade, where the fourth hearing was scheduled to take place in the General Staff building case, in a show of support to witnesses in the case called by protesting university students. 

Miljan Salata, an architect and candidate on the student protest movement ticket, titled The Student Ticket - the Students Will Win, said the employees of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments are under "incredible pressure" and that some will be questioned as witnesses.

"We are talking about a protected cultural asset, regardless of them [the defendants] having illegally stripped it of this protection. That is in a way the subject of today's trial, but primarily we are here today as experts, to show solidarity," he said.

The students and other citizens placed a banner reading, "We Are All Witnesses" on a fence in front of the court building, and some of them later entered to watch the hearing.

In December 2025, the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime charged Serbian Minister of Culture Nikola Selakovic and three other persons with abuse of office and falsification of documents in order to illegally strip the General Staff building complex in downtown Belgrade of its cultural asset status.

Aleksandar Ivanovic, acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Culture of the City of Belgrade, presented his defense before the court on Sept. 21. Aside from Selakovic and Ivanovic, the defendants are Slavica Jelaca, secretary at the Ministry of Culture, and Goran Vasic, acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.