Serbian opposition leader ‘savagely beaten by the secret service’
Britain must stop “appeasing” Serbia’s hard-line government, a senior Conservative MP has said, after an opposition leader was allegedly savagely beaten by state security forces.
Nikola Sandulovic, the head of the Republican Party, was bundled into a black van then taken to the headquarters of the BIA, Serbia’s security and intelligence agency, last week. His family say the beating he received there left him semi-conscious and with several broken ribs.
Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP who is chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said she feared for Mr Sandulovic after his alleged beating and criticised the UK Government’s apparent lack of interest in the Balkans following a controversial election victory for Serbia’s leading party in December.
Gravely concerned for safety & health of @Sandulovic_N after reports he was brutalised by Serbian Intelligence.
The many irregularities observed in the Serbian election resulted in only the mildest expressions of passing concern from UK, US & EU.
Appeasement has consequences.— Alicia Kearns MP (@aliciakearns) January 4, 2024
On Jan 2, Mr Sandulovic posted a video of himself laying a wreath on the grave of Adem Jashari, a founder of the Kosovo Liberation Army and a symbol of Kosovo’s fight for independence, who was killed by Serbian forces in Kosovo in 1998 along with nearly 60 members of his family.
He said he was “the only Serbian politician in history who had apologised on behalf of Serbs for the crimes committed in Kosovo” during the war in 1998-1999.
On Jan 3, Mr Sandulovic was taken to the BIA’s headquarters where he was allegedly severely beaten by more than a dozen security officers.
He was transported to a military hospital in Belgrade, the capital, before being returned home the next day in an ambulance.
On Jan 4, he was arrested again and taken to Belgrade’s central prison, where he was remanded in custody for 30 days.
Video footage showed him being lifted onto a stretcher, apparently in pain and semi-conscious.
Serbian authorities want to put him on trial for visiting the grave, accusing him of “inciting national, racial or religious hatred”. If found guilty, he faces a prison sentence of between six months and five years.
Mr Sandulovic’s lawyers have sent a submission to the UN Committee Against Torture, protesting about his barbaric treatment and calling for him to be given immediate medical care.
“Since he was seized from his home after being tortured, none of his lawyers or family have spoken to him, which is very worrying. We are concerned that he continues to be tortured and is not receiving proper medical care in a civilian hospital,” said Michael Polak, a British barrister who is working with Cedomir Stojkovic, a Serbian human rights lawyer, on behalf of the detained politician.
“We will argue that Mr Sandulovic’s actions in planting flowers on the grave would be protected under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as political expression,” he told The Telegraph.
Thorn in the president’s side
The Republican Party is a small opposition force in Serbian politics. Mr Sandulovic has been a thorn in the side of Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian president, for years.
Mr Sandulovic’s daughter, Klara, told The Telegraph: “We are very concerned for his health. The prison told me yesterday that they are forbidden to say anything about him or his health, even to his family. We believe that if he doesn’t get out [of jail] in a few more days they will kill him and he will not survive because the prison cannot give him the medical care that he needs at the moment.”
She said that following the alleged beating, her father had been taken to prison “in a half-conscious state of mind”.
She accused the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, of having ordered the assault and detention of her father.
Mr Vucic has not commented publicly on the affair.
Albin Kurti, the prime minister of Kosovo, said he was worried about Mr Sandulovic’s condition. “Deeply concerned about reports stating that the Serbian opposition leader Nikola Sandulovic has been paralysed due to severe beatings by the Serbian secret service. This follows his apology for crimes committed by Serbia during the genocidal campaign in Kosovo,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
‘Unspeakable brutality’
He compared the alleged attack to the kind of tactics used by Vladimir Putin against his political adversaries in Russia.
“This unspeakable brutality represents the toll the Serbian government imposes on its own citizens for daring to acknowledge the truth and pursuing reconciliation. It also constitutes a serious breach of the ECHR and a Putin-like assault on those who refuse to participate in genocide denial.”
The alleged beating of Mr Sandulovic, as well as other attacks on civil society, showed that “Serbia is becoming Belarus”, said Ivana Stradner, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, an institution focusing on foreign policy and national security.
A former director of the Serbian intelligence agency said that Mr Sandulovic had been detained on his orders and accused the politician of trying to “undermine Serbia’s constitutional order” and promote the independence of Kosovo.
Aleksandar Vulin told the Serbian news outlet Novosti: “If Sandulovic had laid a wreath on Himmler’s grave, Mossad would have killed him. If he had laid a wreath on Osama bin Laden’s grave, the CIA would have killed him. Laying a wreath on the murderer of Serbs, Adem Jasari, he was only detained.”
