Former Serbian economy minister Rade Basta was arrested on Wednesday at Belgrade airport, Slobodna Dalmacija reports. The arrest took place before he attempted to flee the country.
Several other individuals were arrested alongside Basta, though the exact number of detainees and their identities are not yet known. The operation was carried out on the orders of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade.
The suspects are charged with siphoning money from the public utility Belgrade Electric Power Distribution (Beogradske elektrane) during the period when Basta headed the company. They are suspected of causing the company losses of tens of millions of Serbian dinars by approving unfounded donations to various sports clubs and companies.
Rade Basta is 47 years old and is a senior official in the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). He assumed the role of economy minister in October 2022 as a candidate from United Serbia, the party of the late Dragan Marković Palma, which had been a coalition partner of the Serbian Socialist Party led by Ivica Dačić.
He was removed from his ministerial post in July 2023. A year earlier, in 2023, he openly called for sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Following a conflict with the party leadership, he founded the political movement European Path.
Since 2018, Basta had served as director of the public utility Belgrade Electric Power Distribution, the period to which the charges of illegal business practices relate.
