Shooting in front of Serbian parliament was ‘terrorist act’, President Vucic says

Reuters. A man shot and injured a supporter of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday (October 22) outside the parliament building in Belgrade, where anti-government protests have been held for almost a year – an incident that Vucic blamed on his opponents.

Vucic told a news conference that the shooting was an act of terrorism, playing police videos in which the suspect said he had taken a gasoline can into one of the tents set up in the area by Vucic supporters because the tents annoyed him.

He said he was working on his own.

The shooting took place in a park between the parliament and Vucic’s office where his supporters have erected tents to block the protesters from approaching the buildings.

Vucic said 70-year-old Vladan Andjelkovic entered one of the tents carrying the metal can with gasoline and that Milan Bogdanovic, a government supporter, peered into the tent to see what was going on. Andjelkovic fired shots at him and he fell to the ground.

Huge street protests have been going on for a year against Vucic, triggered by the collapse of a train station awning in the city of Novi Sad last November that killed 16 people and that many blame on government neglect and corruption.