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The prosecutor's office in Serbia said the head of the criminal police directorate was arrested Sunday on suspicion of abuse of office, though it denied a link to momentous elections held a week ago.

Marko Kricak, 42, seen as a loyalist to defeated leader Aleksandar Vucic, was accused by student groups of "brutality" in the police response to demonstrations that helped bring down Vucic's ruling right-wing party.

Student leaders last week demanded Kricak's ouster, along with those of several other police and intelligence chiefs, as part of sweeping reforms they want to see.

On October 25, after nearly two years of anti-government protests, the student-backed list achieved a historic victory in snap elections called by Vucic.

Belgrade's chief prosecutor, Nenad Stefanovic, on Sunday denied a connection between the student movement's demands and Kricak's arrest.

"This arrest has no link with... the result of the legislative elections," he told journalists.

The prosecutor said that Kricak was arrested along with the police commander in charge of fighting organised crime, Bosko Sekulovic.

They were both "suspected of... abusing their office and failing to uphold their professional duties, thus causing prejudice and serious harm to the rights of Belgrade's former police chief", Veselin Milic, said Stefanovic.

The alleged abuse of power was said to have occurred in an investigation the two police chiefs conducted following the murder in May of a suspected criminal underworld figure in a Belgrade restaurant.

Milic had been arrested three days after the murder on charges of failing to report a crime and its perpetrator and providing assistance to the perpetrator.

After two months in custody, Milic started legal action against Kricak and Sekulovic, accusing them of providing incomplete and false evidence to prosecutors.