December 31, 2021
The Working Group for the Security and Protection of Journalists, which was established in late 2020 by the Government of Serbia, has expressed its dissatisfaction over the fact that the decision of the Belgrade Court of Appeal to rescind the verdict in the case of the arson attack on the home of Milan Jovanović was not submitted to all relevant parties in a timely manner.
An announcement released from an extraordinary meeting of the Group insisted that it is essential a final verdict be reached in this case as soon as possible, and that it is extremely important that the repeated procedure be conducted efficiently, given the course of the case to date and its excessive duration.
The trial for the arson attack on Jovanović’s house began in May 2019, while the first-instance verdict convicting three of the four accused was only brought in February 2021.
The Working Group supported an initiative to organise a solidarity campaign over the course of the next month to raise the 2.5 million dinars required to reconstruct Jovanović’s firebombed house.
The Serbian Interior Ministry accepted the Working Group’s proposal that an assessment of Jovanović’s security be conducted.
