Six individuals, including a former minister, have been arrested in Serbia in connection with the tragic incident at the Novi Sad railway station that claimed the lives of 16 people, AFP reported. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station collapsed on November 1, 2024.

The incident sparked mass student protests against the regime of Aleksandar Vučić and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and the fall of his government. The Novi Sad Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the causes of the fatalities, while in February, the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office initiated a parallel corruption probe that led to today’s arrests.

Among those detained on suspicion of abuse of office are former Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Tomislav Momirović and former acting director of the state-owned company “Serbian Railway Infrastructure” Nebojša Šurlan, according to the prosecution. Nine other individuals are being sought, including former Transport Minister Goran Vesić, who resigned shortly after the incident. According to the news site Nova.rs, Vesić has been hospitalized and underwent emergency surgery.

The construction of the station involved Chinese companies China Railway International and China Communications Construction (CRI-CCC), as well as French firm Egis and Hungarian company Utiber. Investigators allege that the two former ministers and three additional suspects allowed the CRI-CCC consortium to overcharge more than $1.2 billion for construction works and to carry out additional work worth over $64 million, from which more than $18 million in illegal profit was allegedly gained.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, protests have intensified across the country, with some drawing hundreds of thousands of people demanding a transparent investigation and early elections. A new protest is being organized in the capital, Belgrade, to mark nine months since the incident. |BGNES