Category: Violence against citizens
Period: from 14 Feb 2024
Outcome: Complaint dismissed or proceedings halted (as of 2 Sep 2026)
On 14 February 2024, police searched a flat in Karaburma where twenty-year-old Andrej Obradović lived with a female flatmate. According to him and to the association Da se zna!, when the officers saw an LGBT+ flag, they tied the pair up and beat them, and sexually abused him. The officers denied the allegations. The First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade took his statement only after he had been on hunger strike for five days, and after six months of pre-investigation proceedings it dismissed the criminal complaint. As of September 2026, no police officer had been prosecuted, and the outcome of the application to the European Court of Human Rights is not known.
On 14 February 2024, police burst into a flat in Karaburma where twenty-year-old Andrej Obradović lived with a female flatmate, acting on a court search warrant over suspected drugs. A small amount of marijuana was found and both were taken to the Novi Beograd police station. Obradović does not dispute that part.
According to him and to the association Da se zna!, when the officers saw an LGBT+ flag in the flat, they tied him and his flatmate up, beat them and insulted them over their sexual orientation, and sexually abused him, both in the flat and at the station. The officers denied the allegations.
The first complaint to the Interior Ministry was rejected, and for two months the prosecutor's office did not call Obradović to give a statement. In April 2024 he went on hunger strike for five days outside the National Assembly and fell ill twice; only then did the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade take his statement.
According to the association “Da se zna!”, the Interior Ministry asked the Ombudsman to release it from the obligation to hand over footage of the search. Obradović says that after he went public, police officers followed and intimidated him.
On 4 September 2024, after six months of pre-investigation proceedings, the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade dismissed the criminal complaint against the officers, even though, according to the association Da se zna!, the Interior Ministry's Complaints Commission had found the allegations of violence partly well-founded.
In February 2025, the association said that all objections had also been rejected and announced an application to the European Court of Human Rights; Obradović said he was leaving Serbia. As of September 2026, no police officer had been prosecuted, and the outcome of the application in Strasbourg is not known.