The head of Serbia’s criminal police directorate has been arrested and formally charged with abuse of office in connection with a manipulated murder investigation, state media reported on Sunday. Marko Kricak, 42, is accused of suppressing and tampering with evidence surrounding the May slaying of a suspected criminal underworld figure inside a Belgrade restaurant.
Kricak was widely viewed as a loyalist to defeated Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, whose right-wing populist camp suffered a legislative defeat to the opposition Student List in parliamentary elections on October 25. Student groups had previously accused Kricak of police brutality during peaceful demonstrations against the former administration, and the removal of Kricak alongside other Vucic loyalists within the nation’s police and intelligence structures formed a core demand of student leaders.
Despite the political timing, Belgrade’s chief prosecutor, Nenad Stefanovic, strongly denied any connection between the student movement’s demands and the police official’s detention. “This arrest has no link with … the result of the legislative elections,” Stefanovic told journalists.
Nevertheless, analysts and observers view the detention of a high-ranking security official tied to the former regime as an indicator that the institutional strongholds of the Vucic administration are beginning to erode. Kricak transitioned from working as a car salesman into Serbia’s domestic intelligence agency, the BIA, before aligning himself with Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party.
In July 2023, Kricak was appointed commander of the Serbian police’s personal protection unit, known as the JZO. During his tenure in that role, he was accused of personally leading the abduction of several university students, reportedly assaulting a female student and threatening her with sexual violence inside the basement of a government building in Belgrade. By late 2025, he had advanced to lead the nation’s criminal police directorate before his current arrest.
