Serbia opposition leader beaten after saying sorry to Albanians
BRITAIN must stop appeasing Serbia’s hardline 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 brutal beating he received there left him semi-conscious and with several broken ribs.
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 1998 along with nearly 60 members of his family. He said that 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 1998-99.
On Jan 3, he 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 the same day, 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 on to 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 six months to five years.
Alicia Kearns, Tory chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, who has a strong interest in the Balkans, said she feared for Mr Sandulovic after his alleged beating. “Gravely concerned for safety and health of @***Sandulovic_n after reports he was brutalised by Serbian intelligence,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The many irregularities observed in the Serbian election [last month] resulted in only the mildest expressions of passing concern from UK, US and EU. Appeasement has consequences.”
The Republican Party is a small opposition force in Serbian politics. Mr Sandulovic has been a thorn in the side of President Aleksandar Vucic for years.
Mr Sandulovic’s daughter, Klara, said: “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 accused Mr Vucic of having ordered the assault and detention of her father. The president has not commented publicly on the affair.