The activists - Nemanja Despotović, Stefan Kojić, Nemanja Blagojević, and Danilo Rajičićević - had been charged with attacking students in late January. According to the indictment, they allegedly ran out of SNS party offices armed with baseball bats and assaulted students who were putting up posters calling for a protest, severely injuring one student and breaking her jaw. During the trial, the defendants denied the charges, although the assaulted students identified two of them as attackers. One of the victims, student Ana, testified in court:
“They caught up with me and first I felt a dull hit in my shoulder, then it felt like someone tripped me and I fell. While I was lying on the ground, at least three of them were kicking and hitting me. While I was on the ground, I heard them asking for my ID card. I don’t know how they left because I was injured.”
The attack triggered a major political fallout at the time: Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned shortly afterward and the government collapsed, while media also reported previously published social media photos showing one of the attackers in the company of Vučević’s son. Although government officials initially condemned the violence, ruling party representatives soon began publicly defending the accused activists and calling for their release from detention. In late May, President Vučić described them as “heroes”, while Vučević suggested blocking the court in Novi Sad to pressure judges to release them. The activists were subsequently released from detention and have now been fully pardoned, meaning they will not face legal consequences for the attack.
“They caught up with me and first I felt a dull hit in my shoulder, then it felt like someone tripped me and I fell. While I was lying on the ground, at least three of them were kicking and hitting me. While I was on the ground, I heard them asking for my ID card. I don’t know how they left because I was injured.”
The attack triggered a major political fallout at the time: Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned shortly afterward and the government collapsed, while media also reported previously published social media photos showing one of the attackers in the company of Vučević’s son. Although government officials initially condemned the violence, ruling party representatives soon began publicly defending the accused activists and calling for their release from detention. In late May, President Vučić described them as “heroes”, while Vučević suggested blocking the court in Novi Sad to pressure judges to release them. The activists were subsequently released from detention and have now been fully pardoned, meaning they will not face legal consequences for the attack.
