Stefanovic: Serbian Railways Infrastructure manager, three others arrested for fatal omissions

BELGRADE - On orders from the Special Anti-Corruption Department of the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, a Serbian Railways Infrastructure investment development manager identified as S K and three members of a technical inspection commission for the Novi Sad railway station were arrested on Monday in connection with several corruption-related criminal offences that resulted in the November 1 overhang collapse at the station that left 15 people dead and two others seriously injured, Chief Prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic said, adding that another member of the commission who was also suspected in the case was at large.

At a press conference, Stefanovic said the arrestees were suspected of omissions that were "in a causal-consequential relationship" with the tragedy because, had they acted conscientiously by performing extraordinary inspection work as well as checks of the degree of fulfillment of requirements during trial operation, they would have been able to visually identify signs of breakage and increased deflection in the overhang in the days that had preceded its collapse.

"I must note that, in this case, the Special Department is acting independently of the case the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office of Novi Sad is acting in - in which an indictment has been raised - as well as independently of a preliminary investigation being conducted by the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime with regards to funding for a reconstruction project at the Novi Sad railway station, because the criminal actions the suspects are charged with were committed in the territory of Belgrade, even though the tragic consequence occurred in Novi Sad," Stefanovic said.