President of commission for investigating murders of journalists claims witnesses saw local politician seek arson attack against journalist’s house

November 4, 2019


Veran Matić, President of the State Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists, stated for daily newspaper Danas that witnesses exist who can confirm that then Grocka municipal president Dragoljub Simonović issued an order for the arson attack on the house of Žig info portal journalist Milan Jovanović in December last year.

“A month before Jovanović’s house was set ablaze, Žig info portal editor-in-chief Željko Matorčević was savagely beaten. The investigation into this case yielded no results whatsoever, and we later also discovered why – because the local police had their own participants in that event,” said Matić.

He assessed that there would have been no local cover-up, and that the role of the municipal president would certainly have been investigated, if the Grocka police had been joined in leading the investigation by a specialised team for swift investigations into crimes against journalists.