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Zdravko Ponoš, president of the opposition party Srbija centar (SRCE), was questioned for about ninety minutes at the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP) in Belgrade on 1 July 2026. The interview was carried out at the request of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade's Special Department for High-Tech Crime, which is examining whether a social media post by Ponoš contains elements of the criminal offense of causing panic and disorder.
The post, published on X on the evening of 15 March 2025 - the day of a mass protest in Belgrade - read: "You used a sound cannon. You shot at citizens while they stood in silence honoring the victims of your regime. Man, you shot at people peacefully protesting. You couldn't take it. This is your peace, your stability!" Ponoš had claimed that a "sound cannon" was used against demonstrators observing a moment of silence for the victims of the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse. Authorities, including Interior Minister Ivica Dačić, have given shifting accounts of whether such a device was present or used.
Ponoš told N1 that police asked what motivated him to write that Vučić "shot at the people," whether he attended the protest, and about his contact with military analyst Aleksandar Radić - though he said that line of questioning was not pursued further in this interview. He said his claim rested on three elements: television footage of the protest, his own military background, and his knowledge that police possessed such equipment without disclosing it, which he says was later borne out by officials' contradictory statements about whether the device existed, was deployed, or was blocked before use.
Ponoš said the interview itself was conducted professionally, but that within ten minutes of it ending, an official record of the conversation was read out word for word on the pro-government channel Informer by Dragan J. Vučićević. He named the officers who conducted the interview - police lieutenant colonel Predrag Jandrić and major Sima Perović - and their superior, Marko Kričak.
Ponoš is the fourth person questioned in this context: a journalist, a military analyst, and a lawyer were previously questioned on suspicion that their statements about the alleged sound cannon amounted to inciting a violent change of the constitutional order or causing panic and disorder, depending on the case.
The post, published on X on the evening of 15 March 2025 - the day of a mass protest in Belgrade - read: "You used a sound cannon. You shot at citizens while they stood in silence honoring the victims of your regime. Man, you shot at people peacefully protesting. You couldn't take it. This is your peace, your stability!" Ponoš had claimed that a "sound cannon" was used against demonstrators observing a moment of silence for the victims of the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse. Authorities, including Interior Minister Ivica Dačić, have given shifting accounts of whether such a device was present or used.
Ponoš told N1 that police asked what motivated him to write that Vučić "shot at the people," whether he attended the protest, and about his contact with military analyst Aleksandar Radić - though he said that line of questioning was not pursued further in this interview. He said his claim rested on three elements: television footage of the protest, his own military background, and his knowledge that police possessed such equipment without disclosing it, which he says was later borne out by officials' contradictory statements about whether the device existed, was deployed, or was blocked before use.
Ponoš said the interview itself was conducted professionally, but that within ten minutes of it ending, an official record of the conversation was read out word for word on the pro-government channel Informer by Dragan J. Vučićević. He named the officers who conducted the interview - police lieutenant colonel Predrag Jandrić and major Sima Perović - and their superior, Marko Kričak.
Ponoš is the fourth person questioned in this context: a journalist, a military analyst, and a lawyer were previously questioned on suspicion that their statements about the alleged sound cannon amounted to inciting a violent change of the constitutional order or causing panic and disorder, depending on the case.
