October 31, 2020
At the trial for the firebombing of the house of journalist Milan Jovanović, the presiding judge has rejected a request of the legal defence team to hear around 20 of their witnesses. The judge also rejected a request of the defence to omit from the minutes the testimony of one of the accused, Vladimir Mihailović, in which he admits that the former president of the municipality of Grocka and chief indictee Dragoljub Simonovic hired him to organise an attack on the journalist Jovanović.
That testimony is considered one of the chief pieces of evidence against Simonović, who is actually an official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.
The defence lawyers protested indignantly in response to the decision, accusing the judge of bias, while simultaneously calling on Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Veran Matić, president of the Commission for Investigating the Murders of Journalists, to influence the court.
