Vucevic: State has been stabilised, arrests not over

BELGRADE - Serbian Progressive Party leader Milos Vucevic, who is also the Serbian president's adviser for regional affairs, said on Thursday arrests over plans for terrorist acts and a violent overthrowing of the Serbian authorities would be continued.

In an appearance on Pink TV, Vucevic congratulated the Security and Information Agency, the police, the Military Security Agency and all services and people involved in "that serious work", and added that it best confirmed that the state had been "stabilised and consolidated" and that the services and the people leading the country had timely information about developments.

"I believe this is not the end of arrests - it cannot stop at just six people," Vucevic said after Serbian police detained on Wednesday a group of people suspected of the crime of preparing acts against the constitutional order and the security of Serbia in conjunction with the criminal offence of calling for a violent change of the constitutional order.

"They are planning a violent overthrowing of the authorities, an assassination of the president and his family, and they are planning to attack and kill anyone who opposes the blockaders," Vucevic said.

The arrestees, identified as I M, aged 48, N A, aged 47, V K, aged 55, A I, aged 49, S G, aged 52 and B M, aged 57, are suspected of meeting at a Kraljevo hotel on June 21 to make plans for a violent overthrowing of the Serbian authorities and attacks on officials of state institutions.

They agreed to carry out physical attacks on police officers in order to disarm them, as well as a violent storming of the Serbian government building and other institutions and the buildings of the national public broadcaster RTS and the Happy and Informer media companies that would include the use of firearms.

The suspects have been placed in detention for up to 48 hours.