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Scuffles and fistfights broke out between ruling party and opposition lawmakers in Serbia's parliament overnight, weeks after a deadly rail station roof collapse that ignited tensions in the Balkan state.

The opposition wanted to discuss who is responsible for the crash that killed 15 people in the northern city of Novi Sad on November 1, while governing officials, who have a majority in Serbia's legislature, sought to adopt a bill on next year's state budget.

The opposition displayed a banner showing a red hand print reading "blood is on your hands". The ruling party responded with a banner accusing the opposition of wanting "war while Serbia wants to work".

READ MORE: Special counsel Jack Smith drops election subversion case against Donald Trump

Scuffles erupted when the two sides tried to grab each other's banner.

The rail station, a major hub, was recently renovated as part of a Serbian-Chinese partnership.

Critics allege that corruption, poor oversight and inadequate construction work contributed to the tragedy.

The collapse has fueled widespread anger toward the government and protests, becoming a flashpoint for broader dissatisfaction with Serbia's authoritarian rule.

There are growing public demands for transparency while the country undertakes large infrastructure projects, mostly with Chinese state companies.

READ MORE: Tourist yacht sinks in high waves, 17 people missing

Serbia's parliament speaker Ana Brnabic yesterday accused the opposition of wanting to come to power by force with help from outside.

"There is not a hint, not a grain of doubt, that these are people who are well organised, who were trained quite well, I believe paid well, to create chaos in Serbia and destabilise our country," she said.

Serbia's autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic said on Instagram that the "daily bullying" and "the savage behaviour" of the opposition would not be tolerated.

READ MORE: Judge delays sentencing decision for killer Menendez brothers

"I want to reassure the citizens and tell them that we will respond to their rudeness, rudeness and arrogance with even more work in the future." he said.

"Today they tried to prevent pensioners from receiving their increased pensions, public sector employees from their increased salaries. They won't succeed."

Opposition leader Dragan Djilas said the speaker had "shut down" the parliament by refusing to allow a debate on who's responsible for the tragedy.

"She started with that when she refused to put on the agenda the request of more than 80 members of the opposition for a debate on confidence in the government because of the murder and crime in Novi Sad," Djilas said.

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OPINION: Being determined to prove people wrong was a defining characteristic.

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Special counsel Jack Smith is dropping the federal election subversion and the mishandling of classified documents cases against President-elect Donald Trump, seeking the cases' dismissal in court filings today.

Trump has said he would fire Smith once he retook the office, shattering previous norms around special counsel investigations.

"The (Justice) Department's position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated," Smith wrote of the election subversion case in a six-page filing with US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC.

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"This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant."

Smith's criminal pursuit of Trump over the last two years for trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election and his mishandling of classified documents represented a unique chapter in American history: never before has a former occupant of the White House faced federal criminal charges.

Though the election subversion case culminated this summer in a landmark Supreme Court ruling that said Trump enjoyed some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, Trump's strategy of delay in the case ensured that a trial never got underway before the November election.

In the election case Trump faced in Washington, DC, Smith charged the former president over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, a plot that culminated in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

"The Government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed," Smith said in the filing.

Chutkan had been deciding how much of Trump's conduct at the centre of the case was shielded by immunity after prosecutors last month laid out their arguments for why the Supreme Court's ruling should have no impact on the case.

After Trump won reelection this month, prosecutors asked Chutkan to pause a series of postelection deadlines in the case as they weighed their next steps.

In the documents case brought in Florida, Trump was indicted for allegedly taking classified national defence documents from the White House after he left office and resisting the government's attempts to retrieve the materials.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung in a statement called the move "a major victory for the rule of law".

"The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponisation of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country," Cheung added.

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Trump employees still face appeal

Smith, in a filing with a federal appeals court, said that prosecutors were keeping their case on mishandling classified documents alive against two of Trump's employees.

The case is before the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing Judge Aileen Cannon's order dismissing all charges.

The co-defendants are Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, who work for Trump and are accused of helping the former president obstruct a federal investigation into sensitive government documents taken from his first administration.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

"The special counsel's decision to proceed in this case, even after dismissing it against President Trump, is an unsurprising tribute to the poor judgment that led to the indictment against Mr De Oliveira in the first place," John Irving, a defence attorney for De Oliveira, said.

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. If they prefer a slow acquittal, that's fine with us."

A lawyer for Nauta, Stanley Woodward, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dismissing without prejudice

Smith said he was seeking to drop the charges against the president-elect "without prejudice," which would keep the door open for charges to be brought again in the future, calling the presidential immunity Trump will have as "temporary".

Smith said he consulted with Justice Department lawyers on the question and that they also weighed the possibility of pausing the case until Trump no longer had the immunity of the presidency protecting him.

Ultimately, however, the department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the bar on prosecuting sitting presidents is "categorial," including for indictments handed up before a defendant enters office.

"Accordingly, the Department's position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated. And although the Constitution requires dismissal in this context, consistent with the temporary nature of the immunity afforded a sitting President, it does not require dismissal with prejudice," Smith wrote.

State cases will continue against Trump

As president, Trump will not have the power to interfere with the prosecutions brought against him by state authorities in Georgia and New York.

However, the courts in those cases will still have to work out immunity questions and issues raised by his return to the White House.

Last week, the judge overseeing Trump's criminal hush money case in New York postponed his sentencing indefinitely.

A jury in the state convicted Trump earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during the 2016 campaign to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged a prior affair with the president-elect. Trump denies the affair.

And Trump is still working to stave off prosecution in Georgia, where he is a defendant in a sprawling case that accuses him and several allies of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the Peach State.

A mammoth rape trial in France moved into a new phase as prosecutors began to lay out the verdicts and punishments they want for dozens of men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot while she was drugged and rendered unconscious by her husband.

After hearings stretching over nearly three months, the trial of 51 defendants in the southern city of Avignon is beginning to wrap up.

Pelicot's courage during the harrowing proceedings has helped transform her into an icon, even beyond France, for campaigners fighting against sexual violence.

READ MORE: Tourist yacht sinks in high waves, 17 people missing

The public prosecutors started on Monday by focusing on Dominique Pelicot, the man that 71-year-old Gisèle Pelicot was married to for nearly 50 years and who she believed was a loving, caring husband.

But he has admitted that for years he mixed sedatives into her food and drink so he could rape her and also invite dozens of strangers that he recruited online to also rape her.

Prosecutor Laure Chabaud asked the panel of judges for the maximum possible penalty for aggravated rape — 20 years — against the victim's now ex-husband. Dominique Pelicot, who turns 72 this week, stared down at the floor, one hand on the handle of his cane, as the prosecutor spoke.

"Twenty years between the four walls of a prison," she said. "It's both a lot and not enough."

The court is expected to deliver its verdicts by December 20.

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Gisele Pelicot, who waived her right to anonymity, has pushed for graphic images that her husband filmed of the rapes to be presented in the courtroom, showing that she was unconscious and inert, audibly snoring.

"This woman was you, Madame Gisele Pelicot, an ordinary woman," said prosecutor Jean-François Mayet, turning to her, as he praised her courage and her desire to make shame change sides, so it falls on rapists and not their victims.

He noted that Monday also marked the international day for the elimination of violence against women and said that France faceD "a long path for our society to change its view of rape culture."

Gisele Pelicot sat quietly, sometimes staring up the ceiling, as the prosecutors detailed how Dominique Pelicot amassed and carefully catalogued a library of 20,000 photos and videos of the abuse that stretched over nearly a decade.

The evidence that he stored on hard drives, memory sticks and phones led investigators to dozens of the men he recruited, although about 20 others haven't yet been identified.

All but one of the defendants are on trial for aggravated rape or attempted rape. In previous testimony, she said they treated her "like a rag doll, like a garbage bag."

The defendants and alleged rapes are so numerous that the prosecutors were expected to take three days to summarize the evidence and detail the verdicts and sentences they want.

In the first cases that the prosecutors focused on Monday, after requesting 20 years imprisonment for Dominique Pelicot, they asked for sentences of 10 years or more for co-defendants also on trial for rape or attempted rape.