Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić acknowledged his loss in the prime ministerial race on Sunday, a defeat that came amid mounting evidence of systematic digital surveillance deployed against his political opponents. Throughout his decade-long grip on power since 2014—first as prime minister, then as president—Vučić has intensified authoritarian practices. Over the past two years, digital forensic specialists have uncovered strong indicators that spyware infected the devices of numerous Serbian opposition politicians, demonstrators, legal investigators and media professionals.
Researchers at Amnesty International have documented that the government repeatedly used Cellebrite surveillance technology to covertly access and extract data from adversaries' phones, sometimes installing malicious software during staged arrests and interrogations. Last week, Citizen Lab investigators reported that Vladan Đokić, rector of the University of Belgrade, had his device compromised with the sophisticated zero-click Pegasus spyware sometime this year. Đokić had consistently refused to cooperate with state efforts to suppress student demonstrations despite sustained pressure from the Vučić administration. Serbian authorities confiscated servers and computers from his Belgrade office in March, according to Citizen Lab.
Rade Bajić, a prosecutor who had been examining alleged corrupt dealings between Vučić and Jared Kushner—who reportedly sought to purchase a protected historic Belgrade site for a Trump Tower development—was also targeted with Pegasus, the SHARE Foundation reported. Bajić received multiple Apple notifications warning of attempted spyware intrusions and was investigating government officials suspected of forging documents to facilitate the transaction.
The pattern of digital repression extends back at least to 2024, according to Andrijana Ristić, a researcher at Serbia's SHARE Foundation who works with targeted student activists. "At first it was civil society, journalists, and activists and then it moved to these protesters and a new election cycle," Ristić explained. She attributed the recent surge in confirmed spyware incidents to heightened stakes for the government during the electoral period.
Security researchers have identified at least 15 individuals in Serbia whose devices fell victim to mercenary spyware so far this year, according to the SHARE Foundation. In February 2025, Cellebrite announced it was severing its relationship with the Serbian government following Amnesty International's discovery that authorities had "systematically deployed" the surveillance platform to breach civilian phones and implant spyware. Nevertheless, Amnesty found the software continuing to be used in operations targeting government critics weeks after the announcement. Two investigative journalists were hit with Pegasus attacks in March 2025, Amnesty documented.
The Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet responded to requests for comment on these allegations.
