February 28, 2021<\/p>\n
Judge Slavko \u017dugi\u0107, who led the proceedings for almost two years, sentenced Dragoljub Simonovi\u0107, a former president of the Belgrade municipality of Grocka and an official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, to four years and three months in prison, as well as condemning Vladimir Mihailovi\u0107 to four years in prison and Aleksandar Marinkovi\u0107 to four years and three months.<\/p>\n
The case against a fourth defendant, Igor Novakovi\u0107, was recently separated in order to avoid the obstruction imposed by his lawyer. He will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor announced the lodging of an appeal in response to the defendants having received more lenient sentences than those he sought from the court, while the convicted defendants also announced that they will launch appeals.<\/p>\n
Ivana Stevanovi\u0107, executive director of the Slavko \u0106uruvija Foundation, assessed these first-instance verdicts in the case of the arson attack on Jovanovi\u0107’s house as being \u201cvery good news for journalists in Serbia, as well as for the judicial system\u201d. She did emphasize, however, that the sentences were more lenient \u201cthan we expected and than the prosecutor sought\u201d and that she believed that \u201chigh sentences would have represented a slightly stronger message and provided a slightly stronger sense of security for all journalists who work under great pressure in Serbia\u201d.<\/p>\n
Alongside domestic media and journalists associations, the verdict was also welcomed by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Without Borders (RWB\/RSF), and the International Press Institute (IPI).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 28, 2021 Three of four defendants accused of firebombing the house of \u017dig Info portal journalist Milan Jovanovi\u0107 were sentenced to 12.5 years in prison according to the first-instance verdict brought in December 2018. Judge Slavko \u017dugi\u0107, who led the proceedings for almost two years, sentenced Dragoljub Simonovi\u0107, a former president of the Belgrade municipality of Grocka and an official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, to four years and three months in prison, as well as condemning Vladimir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-en"],"yoast_head":"\n