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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Helena Smith in Belgrade

‘They hit me so hard I lost consciousness’: Serbian opposition politician tells of secret service ordeal

Nikola Sandulović bed-bound in his Belgrade home since being allegedly beaten by Serbian secret services.
Nikola Sandulović bed-bound in his Belgrade home since being allegedly beaten by Serbian secret services. Photograph: Helena Smith/The Observer

Bed-bound in the gargantuan brick and marble villa that is his home, Nikola Sandulović recounts the attack that has, he says, left him paralysed on his right side and unable to walk.

It was 3 January at 3.20pm when three vehicles carrying agents from Serbia’s BIA secret service screeched to a halt outside his home in Belgrade’s plush Senjak area. Bundled into a black van – its tinted windows shielding what would happen next – the masked men soon told him why they had come: the former entrepreneur and opposition politician had dared to apologise for crimes committed by Serbs when inter­-ethnic conflict convulsed Kosovo in the late 1990s after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia.

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