PM: Attack on Gendarme is an Attack on the State

Milos Vucevic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic has said that the March 10 assault on Gendarmerie member Lazar Bacic, which occurred during the student blockade of the RTS public service headquarters, constitutes “an attack on the Serbian state.”

According to Vucevic, the incident is a “prelude to what is being prepared for March 15,” when a massive university student protest is scheduled to take place in the capital.

“I’m worried by what I’ve learned as prime minister and what the President of Serbia has brought to our attention during a Cabinet meeting. It is particularly disturbing that someone decided to blockade the RTS because someone else made a guest appearance on the public service. [The blockade] was being prepared even before the guest appearance took place, with the false triggers [for the protest] manufactured,” Vucevic said in his address at the Cabinet headquarters.

The outgoing prime minister warned that “any attempt at a violent coup or color revolution will be crushed, in keeping with the law.”

He added that the person who attacked officer Lazar Bacic will “be held accountable in accordance with the law, be they a student or not, a member of some [political] party or not.”

Belgrade’s Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office has tasked the police with urgently identifying the persons suspected of attacking a member of the Gendarmerie in front of the RTS public service building late on March 10.

According to the press release, several persons are suspected of rushing members of the Gendarmerie and attacking them from behind while the officers were approaching the RTS building to secure it.