The Higher Court in Belgrade has ordered a 30-day detention for head of Belgrade's Palilule municipality Aleksandar Jovicic, suspected of abuse of office and trading in influence.

According to the court statement issued on Saturday, the pre-trial judge of the court’s Special Department for Combatting the Corruption ordered the custody measure due to the existence of “special circumstances” indicating that Jovicic would obstruct the proceedings by influencing witnesses and, due to circumstances, indicating that he would repeat the crime in a short period of time.

Detention was also ordered for a person with initials D.V. due to the suspicion that he committed the same crime, while the suspects whose initials are G.P., M.M., D.L., Z.P., and DJ.R. are a subject of a restraining order, and are banned from meeting and communicating with certain persons.

Jovicic, who is also a senior official of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), was arrested on Thursday under suspicion of influencing the person in charge of inspection affairs in the municipality of Palilula to further influence construction inspectors who would then abuse their positions and allow the construction without a building permit as well as illegally gaining 28.8 million dinars from the investor for those facilities.