Dacic: Police were attacked in Novi Sad, ambulance carrying injured dean was blocked

BELGRADE - Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic on Monday strongly condemned violent scenes outside the Novi Sad Faculty of Sport and Physical Education earlier in the day and noted that the police had been attacked in the incident.

Addressing a press conference, Dacic announced all perpetrators of the violence would face criminal and misdemeanour complaints.

The police reacted to the least extent possible, in an attempt to deter attacks on police officers, Dacic said, adding that the police had been attacked as soon as they had arrived on the scene.

"They were pelted with things, insulted and pushed together with the dean. It was evident that a rampage had taken place inside the building itself, that certain barricades had been put up, they (the perpetrators) were going in through windows," Dacic said.

He noted that a crowd that had gathered outside the building had refused to let an ambulance carrying dean Patrik Drid - who was injured in the incident - drive away from the area.

"When the ambulance came, it was blocked, its tyres were slashed and its windows smashed. It has really never happened - that a professor, a dean, should be attacked like this," Dacic said, adding that the dean had identified a small number of the faculty's students in the crowd and that opposition activists had been present as well.