Belgrade Appeals Court judges confirmed a sentence handed down to the KRIK investigative network over an article which included quotes from a recorded conversation between criminals about Bratislav Gasic who headed Serbia’s top civilian security agency at the time.
The quotes were taken from the trial of an organized crime group whose members made several comments about then BIA chief Gasic.
The court ruled that the article authors should have been more tolerant towards Gasic because he was BIA chief and that journalists can report information but can’t explain what happened in their pieces, KRIK said.
KRIK editor Stevan Dojcinovic said that they were sued by Gasic, a senior official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) “who seems to be more powerful than the courts and it’s no surprise we lost this case”. “The most frightening thing is that the ruling is an attempt to censor the media by limiting them to simply quoting what the Serbian authorities and institutions say,” he added.
Source: N1
