The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade has submitted a request to the Anti-Terrorism Service of the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP) to collect necessary information regarding documentation from the plenums of several faculties, which allegedly contain plans for actions aimed at carrying out a simulation of the use of a “sound cannon” during the protest held on March 15, 2025, the Prosecutor’s Office announced. It was also ordered, they added, that interviews be conducted with all persons who publicly claimed that a “sound cannon” had been used against protest participants – regarding how, in what manner, and from whom they obtained such information, and on what basis they made such categorical claims.
The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office states that during the preliminary investigation into the death of M.Ž., a student of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and the circumstances under which pyrotechnic devices were ignited on the fifth floor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade on March 26 at around 10:40 p.m., as well as the determination of whether there were omissions by responsible persons regarding the safety of students and employees at the faculty, information emerged indicating grounds for suspicion of other criminal offenses prosecuted ex officio that are unrelated to the subject of the proceedings.
They add that during the search of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade on March 27, 2026, documentation from the plenums of several faculties was temporarily seized, among which was a document concerning a meeting of the Students in Blockade organization – the Umbrella Security Working Group (KRBG), held on January 22, 2025.
“At that meeting, among other things, the topic of discussion was the ‘sound cannon’, and it was stated that a sound cannon would receive ‘a massive response from Brussels’, as well as that ‘in China, the practice was to get out of the way when they see a sound cannon’. Participants in the meeting and other unidentified persons are suspected of having undertaken actions in the following period in order to carry out a simulation of the use of a ‘sound cannon’ by state authorities at the protest planned for March 15, 2025, in Belgrade, and to accuse them domestically and internationally of using a ‘sound cannon’, all with the aim of creating public panic and fear among citizens, and provoking unrest that would lead to a violent change of the constitutional order and endanger state security,” the Prosecutor’s Office statement reads.
In connection with the above, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade submitted a request to the Anti-Terrorism Service of the Criminal Police Directorate to collect necessary information in order to determine whether the actions of unidentified persons who, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, participated in the aforementioned meeting contain essential elements of the criminal offense of Incitement to Violent Change of the Constitutional Order under Article 309 of the Criminal Code or another criminal offense prosecuted ex officio.
“The police have been instructed to identify the persons who participated in the KRBG meeting on January 22, 2025, and to conduct informational interviews with them regarding the discussion and proposal that the police possess a sound cannon, that it is a serious weapon, and that in China it was practiced that when a sound cannon is spotted one should move out of the way, and to explain the statement that a sound cannon would receive ‘a massive response from Brussels’, as well as all other relevant circumstances that were the subject of that meeting,” the statement says.
The Prosecutor’s Office states that it is necessary to identify all persons who participated in implementing the adopted proposal to simulate the use of a sound cannon at the protest in Slavija held on March 15, 2025, who participated in such an organization, how the roles were divided, who determined the area where the use of the sound cannon would allegedly be staged, why stewards removed their vests, who ordered it, what real danger existed that the stewards would remove their vests and signal danger to other participants and the need to move away from the gathering site and the street, and who and in what way caused protest participants to flee from the streets to the sidewalks and disperse, leaving the protest.
It was also ordered that interviews be conducted with all persons who publicly claimed that a “sound cannon” was used against protest participants on March 15, 2025, in Belgrade, regarding how, in what manner, and from whom they obtained such information, on what basis they made such categorical claims, and all other circumstances related to their public appearances on the topic of the “sound cannon”.
“In addition, it is necessary to determine who organized the medical examinations of protest participants because of the alleged consequences of the ‘sound cannon’. Furthermore, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade has requested that the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade provide access to the case files it opened regarding the alleged use of a ‘sound cannon’,” the Prosecutor’s Office states.
What happened on March 15 at the student protest?
As a reminder, on March 15, 2025, the largest gathering in the country’s history was organized in Belgrade at the invitation of students. As part of the program, 15 minutes of silence were observed (another person later succumbed to injuries) for the victims of the Novi Sad canopy collapse, but in the 11th minute a sound echoed through the area, later described by citizens as similar to an approaching airplane or a vehicle moving at great speed toward those gathered in King Milan Street, from the direction of Terazije toward Slavija.
The crowd in that part of the city split into two groups, causing major panic among those present. In the following days, accusations emerged that a sonic weapon – a sound cannon – had been used.
The authorities denied that any of the alleged events had occurred, but it was later revealed that the police possessed sound cannons known as LRAD 450XL devices, which they initially claimed not to possess at all, then said they did have but that they were stored in warehouses, before Danas eventually revealed that the devices had in fact been mounted on police vehicles and that those vehicles were present on the streets of Belgrade that day (photo at the beginning of this article).
Following the incident, a large number of citizens sought medical assistance, reporting similar symptoms – dizziness, headaches, nausea, and ringing in the ears.
Officials in Brussels also reacted to allegations that a sound cannon had been used, calling for an investigation into the incident. However, on March 16, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office headed by Nenad Stefanović ordered the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office to open a case in order to identify persons who had “spread false information in public” that dozens of citizens with health complaints had been treated at the Emergency Center of the University Clinical Center of Serbia.
On April 16, 2025, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić stated that the claims about the use of a sound cannon at the March 15 student protest in Belgrade were “a pre-organized and deliberate attack on the state aimed at provoking absolute instability and the violent overthrow of the constitutional order.”
He had previously announced that the investigation would also be conducted by the American FBI and the Russian FSB, but in the end only the FSB published a report stating that “based on the obtained results, a categorical conclusion can be drawn that LRAD-type acoustic emitter devices possessed by the Serbian police authorities were not used during the protest.”
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Source: N1; Foto: Serbian Times