Macut: Today's incident politically motivated, represents grave, impermissible act of violence

LONDON - Serbian PM Djuro Macut said Wednesday's incident outside the national parliament building in central Belgrade was politically motivated and represented a grave and impermissible act of violence that deserved the strongest condemnation.

"I am deeply concerned over the grave, politically motivated incident that took place outside the National Assembly building and in which one of our citizens was wounded," Macut also said in a statement to Serbian reporters in London, where he is attending a Western Balkans summit of the Berlin Process.

He said the wounding of the citizen was a direct attack on civic freedoms and the lives of people.

"It is impermissible for something like that to happen in a country that is striving to protect the life of every citizen and enable everyone to go about their business and live in Serbia," the PM noted.

He said Serbia was a free country and that his government would strive to prevent anything like this from happening again.

Earlier in the day, one person was wounded in a shooting outside the parliament building.

The perpetrator of the shooting has been arrested.

After the incident, a tent outside the building caught fire.

The fire has been contained and put out by firefighters.