Selakovic, three others indicted in General Staff building case

BELGRADE - The Serbian Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime indicted on Monday Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic and three other people for illegal actions in the process of abolishing the status of cultural good attributed to the army General Staff building in central Belgrade.

In a statement, the Prosecutor's Office said Selakovic, Slavica Jelaca, secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Goran Vasic, acting director of the National Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments, and Aleksandar Ivanovic, acting director of the City of Belgrade Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments, were accused of the criminal act of office abuse under Article 359, Paragraph 1 of the Penal Code and the criminal act of forgery of official documents under Article 357, Paragraph 2 in conjunction with Paragraph 1 of the Penal Code.

"The Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime continues to take actions with a view to ascertaining whether the actions of some other persons also constitute criminal acts," the statement said.

Selakovic was questioned by the Prosecutor's Office on December 4.

Speaking to reporters after the questioning, he said the Prosecutor's Office had usurped a part of the state system and was destroying what was legal, lawful and constitutional in Serbian society.

He added that the Prosecutor's Office was trying to topple the government in an unlawful and illegal manner, hiding behind the authority given to it by law.

Selakovic's attorney Vladimir Djukanovic said at the time he had requested that the proceedings be halted as, under a new law passed by the parliament, a decision from 2005 declaring the building as a cultural good was null and void.