Serbian lawyer calls for prosecutors allegedly pressured by intelligence agency to resign

Olenik’s comments followed testimony by prosecutor Miodrag Surla before Serbia’s High Prosecutorial Council (VST), in which Surla said he had learned that senior prosecutors had been summoned to meetings with officials from the Security Information Agency (BIA) ahead of elections for council members. According to Surla, these meetings took place at BIA headquarters and involved prosecutors from the jurisdiction of the Kragujevac appellate prosecutor’s office, where voting was later repeated and election results shifted.

“All prosecutors who succumbed to pressure from the BIA must resign or be removed. They are no longer prosecutors,” Olenik wrote on social media platform X, reacting to the allegations.

He also called on Serbia’s Chief Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac to launch an investigation into BIA Director Vladimir Orlicand determine which prosecutors had contact with intelligence officials. Olenik argued that any interference by the intelligence services in prosecutorial elections would represent a serious violation of judicial independence.

“The Chief Public Prosecutor must initiate proceedings against the BIA director. The investigation should determine which prosecutors were summoned, and the elections for the High Prosecutorial Council must be repeated,” he said.

The High Prosecutorial Council later confirmed it had contacted Surla, who reiterated his claims that intelligence officials held meetings with prosecutors prior to the vote.