To the many outside of Serbia who view Princip as a terrorist, Nikolic said, 'others can think what they want.' 'Gavrilo Princip was a hero, a symbol of the idea of freedom, the assassin of tyrants and the carrier of the European idea of liberation from slavery,' Nikolic told the crowd. 'Today, we are not afraid of the truth,' Nikolic said. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic described Princip as a freedom fighter and a hero. Gavrilo Princip, whose two-meter bronze likeness was unveiled before a crowd of hundreds in central Belgrade still fuels controversy in the ethnically-divided Balkans. Serbia on Sunday inaugurated a monument to the man whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand ignited World War I.