Serbian Taxpayers Foot Cost of Unlawful Detention

Not yet 30, his life in tatters, Dejan filed for compensation from the Ministry of Justice but received no response by the legal deadline. He took Serbia to court and in 2017 received a payout of just over 21,000 euros for unlawful detention.

"Even though he is now free, he still sleeps badly, waking in the middle of the night with the fear that he is still in that room. He cannot let that feeling go," Dejan's lawyers wrote in their suit.

Dejan's story, pieced together by BIRN from court documents released under a Freedom of Information request, is just one of 4,376 individual cases in which Serbians claimed compensation from the Ministry of Justice between 2014 and 2018 for unlawful detention or conviction.

The ministry settled in 293 cases, paying out around 456,000 euros.

According to data provided by the courts, over the same period the Serbian state paid out a further 1.22 million euros to claimants like Dejan who sued in court.

In total, according to the findings of the BIRN investigation, the Serbian state paid out at least 1.68 million euros in taxpayers' money in cases of unlawful detention or conviction between 2014 and 2018.

The true figure is likely far higher given that courts in the country's three biggest cities - the capital Belgrade, Nis in southern Serbia and Novi Sad in the north - said they were unable to provide any data given its filing system does not differentiate between such cases and other compensation claims.

Nevertheless, human rights organisations and legal experts say the number of such cases and the sums involved point to a worrying trend of unlawful detention.

Prosecutors and judges, they warn, are using the measure as a means of punishment, often to satisfy pressure from the public...