Serbian authorities detained nine active police officers and one former officer on Wednesday for ⁠allegedly using excessive force against detainees during anti-corruption protests last year in Belgrade, the country’s interior ministry ⁠said.

Anti-corruption protests swept ⁠across Serbia, ​a candidate for European Union membership, in 2025 and 2026 after 16 people died when a concrete canopy ⁠on a renovated railway station in the city of Novi Sad collapsed on 1 November 2024.

The protests ultimately ⁠resulted in the ouster of the populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which is ​loyal to former president Aleksandar Vučić, in ‌an 25 October ‌snap parliamentary election by the leaderless Student List.

The ministry said in a ‌statement that the suspects, who served in an elite unit, tortured and intimidated several people detained in the garage of the government compound in downtown Belgrade on 14-15 August 2025.

“By the use of force and threats, (they) inflicted great pain and severe suffering on a larger…