Belgrade Mayor Denies Punching Opposition Councillor in Street Altercation

Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic at a session of the Belgrade Assembly. Photo: Aleksandar Sapic/Facebook. Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic on Tuesday denied physically assaulting an opposition city councillor, Tatjana Micic, the night before, insisting he had “only defended” himself after being verbally attacked. The Kreni-Promeni (Move-Change) movement said Sapic, a senior official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, assaulted their councillor, Micic, and her husband, while they were walking their dog near their home. The movement said Micic sustained suffered a broken nose and jaw, which it said was confirmed by medical documentation. BIRN could not independently confirm this. “The Mayor rushed at me, claiming I had brought people outside his home [to hold a protest], and got right in my face. When I took out my phone and tried to film him, he started hitting my arm, and my husband tried to protect me. I stepped between the two of them to prevent things from getting out of hand, when he [Sapic] hit me on the nose,” Micic told media outlet N1. A friend called the police, she said, but did not initially say Sapic was involved. “When they [the police] realised who it was, two more patrols arrived, followed by the head of the New Belgrade [district] police department,” she told N1. Sapic denied the claims at the press conference on Tuesday, saying he had “always condemned every form of violence”, particularly against women. “My personal code, as a man and as a human being, has never allowed me to do such a thing, nor would I ever allow myself to do it,” Sapic said. He said that during his evening walk with a friend, he had encountered “a person who had distributed leaflets, called on people to gather outside my home, gathered people there and, in every possible way, endangered both my safety and my peace”. When he recognised her, he had asked “why she had been coming to his home”. He claimed he was then verbally attacked, first by the man and then by the woman. Sapic said he had only defended himself from the woman’s husband. “I have never attacked anyone first in my life … I believe I acted correctly. I did not touch the woman in question, except that at the moment when he came towards me and they started pushing, I moved her away from me precisely so that I would not come into any kind of contact with her,” he explained. He said he then went to the police station, where he remained until the early hours, to cogive his accont of the incident. He said that he was sorry if the woman was injured. “I would like to know how she was injured and who injured her. Because I certainly did not injure her, and that is what I am asking the competent authorities to establish,” he added. A friend of Sapic also addressed journalists, confirming Sapic’s version of events. The Prosecutor’s Office said Sapic was released after being questioned and more steps would be taken once the facts were established. Prime ministerial candidate Aleksandar Vucic, who stepped down as president on Sunday to run in elections scheduled for October 25, said that Sapic “should have stepped away” when the incident happened. “You hold public office; as a public official, you should have removed yourself from the situation. Cross to the other side of the street if necessary, but you must not take part in something like that. The responsibility lies entirely with Sapic. There is no doubt that there was a provocation, but you cannot respond in that way,” Vucic said. The Kreni-Promeni movement said it will file a criminal complaint and demand the arrest of Sapic.