The Court of Appeal in Belgrade has overturned the decision confirming the indictment filed by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade in connection with the collapse of the canopy at the railway station building in Novi Sad and ordered that a new decision be made.
As reported by the investigative portal KRIK, the indictment was filed in March last year and charges three individuals with approving the reopening of the station even though they allegedly knew that works on the building had not been completed, that it was not stable and that its use could endanger people’s lives.
According to a statement published on the court’s website, the appeals lodged by defence lawyers and by the defendant Slobodanka Katanić, a manager at the state-owned company Infrastructure of Railways of Serbia, were upheld.
Question of prosecutorial jurisdiction
The main reason for the ruling, KRIK reports, is that the first-instance court which confirmed the indictment failed to establish whether it had been submitted by an authorised prosecutor, the statement says, without providing further details.
This is the second time that the appellate court has overturned the decision confirming the indictment, and on the same grounds. The indictment was initially filed by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, but the case was subsequently forwarded to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime.
What the indictment states?
In addition to Katanić, the indictment also covers the president and a member of the Technical Inspection Commission for the Novi Sad station, Milutin Savović and Biljana Krstić. All are charged with negligent performance of duties, abuse of official position and a serious offence against general safety.
Investigative website KRIK states that it has had access to the indictment, which says that Katanić was responsible for coordinating and overseeing the railway reconstruction project from Novi Sad to the Hungarian border, which included the reconstruction of the station building in Novi Sad.
The prosecution claims that Katanić knew that the technical inspection report prepared by the other two defendants had not been properly drawn up, and that the works at the station had not been completed, yet she nevertheless issued a decision to establish a commission that would decide on opening to passengers the part of the building where the canopy was located.
According to the indictment, she failed to warn the competent authorities that the facility had still not been completed.
The commission, chaired by Savović with Krstić as a member, was tasked with carrying out a technical inspection of the completed works on the station building and establishing that all conditions necessary for its use had been met, the indictment states.
The prosecution maintains that Savović and Krstić, within the scope of their profession and authority, did not perform this task properly. The indictment states that they conducted the inspection while the reconstruction of the building was still ongoing and failed to verify whether the works had been carried out in accordance with the building permit and other documentation on the basis of which the facility was being reconstructed.
Proceedings before the court in Novi Sad
In addition to this case, separate proceedings regarding the canopy collapse are being conducted by the prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad, while the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime is carrying out a financial investigation relating to the railway reconstruction project.
As part of the investigation led by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad, former Minister of Construction Goran Vesić was arrested at the end of November 2024. Although the prosecution filed an indictment, the court discontinued proceedings against him and several other individuals at the end of December last year due to a lack of evidence.
Investigation into financial misconduct
Since 1 August last year, the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime has been examining alleged financial abuses in the modernisation and reconstruction project of the railway from Belgrade to the Hungarian border, which includes the refurbishment of the station building in Novi Sad.
In addition to Vesić, the investigation also covers former minister Tomislav Momirović, who was arrested and spent six months in detention. The prosecution suspects that all those under investigation jointly caused damage to the state budget amounting to 115 million dollars.
(Nedeljnik.rs, 19.02.2026)