Category: Persecution
Period: from Jun 2025
Outcome: No one investigated (as of 16 Sep 2026)
Pulmonologist Tatjana Adžić Vukičević, who ran the Covid hospital in Batajnica and was decorated by President Vučić, was removed in 2025 as head of a department at the University Clinical Centre of Serbia after publicly backing the student movement, and she says that support is exactly why. In February 2026 the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade charged her with a serious offence against human health over the treatment of a patient who died in 2021; she maintains that procedures were followed. According to her, the Court of Appeal overturned the confirmation of the indictment, but in September 2026 she was still suspended from work.
Tatjana Adžić Vukičević, a pulmonologist and associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, ran the Covid hospital in Batajnica from December 2020, which treated more than 20,000 patients. In 2021 President Aleksandar Vučić awarded her the Order of the Star of Karađorđe.
Adžić Vukičević publicly supported the student movement. On 30 June 2025 she was removed as head of a department at the Clinic for Pulmonology of the University Clinical Centre of Serbia, which she had led since 2011, and moved to a junior doctor's post. According to her, she was dismissed for supporting the students; she had earlier refused several times to back Vučić in elections and was removed from national expert commissions.
The student plenum named the UKCS director, Jelena Drulović, as the person who ordered the dismissal; no response from the UKCS or the director has been found.
The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade indicted Adžić Vukičević on 6 February 2026 for a serious crime against public health, which carries two to 12 years, over the treatment of a patient who died in May 2021. The criminal complaint was not filed until April 2024. On the same day she was removed from her posts at the UKCS and at the faculty.
She says all procedures were followed and that only three witnesses were heard in the investigation, none of them from the hospital. Colleagues spoke of political retaliation.
According to her, the Court of Appeal on 20 July 2026 overturned the decision by which the Higher Court had confirmed the indictment, so the indictment did not take effect. Even so, in September 2026, after more than seven months, she was still suspended from work. No more recent court decision has been found.