Belgrade police official, 9 others, arrested

Belgrade police official, 9 others, arrested

D.J. was arrested on the order of the Special Department for Suppression of Corruption of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade.

D.J. - whom the media have identified as Dejan Jovic - is suspected of telling a police officer in the PU Zvezdara (a Belgrade municipality) on November 1 "not to take measures within his jurisdiction against a man who had a warrant issued for his arrest for the criminal act of domestic violence."

The audits carried out in PU Zvezdara found that the case had not been treated in accordance with the law, and the police officer is now suspected of deliberately suspending further work on the said case, the MUP's statement said.

D.J. is suspected of 16 cases of unauthorized access to the data of citizens in the JIS MUP (integrated automatic information system of the Interior Ministry) - and communicating the data in question to "third parties."

The suspect will be detained for up to 48 hours, after which he will be brought before the Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, along with a criminal complaint.

Also, a criminal complaint has been filed "under regular procedure" against a 36-year-old police officer of the Zvezdara Police Station, on suspicion that he committed the criminal offense of abuse of office.

Among those arrested are two more police officers, former managers of Telekom (Serbia's state-owned telcom company), and Komercijalna Bank.