Serbian reporters targeted for inquiring into top-level graft

Above Stevan Dojcinovic's desk hangs a picture of The Wire's most memorable killer and his best-known line from a drama that depicted Baltimore mired in moral decay from the slums to city hall.

“Come at the king,” Omar Little warned his adversaries, “you best not miss.”

With his colleagues at Belgrade’s Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (Krik), Dojcinovic has taken aim at some of Serbia’s most powerful people, including a prime minister who is set to cement his grip on power in elections on Sunday.

Investigations into top-level graft and links between Balkan politics, business and organised crime have earned Krik international acclaim but also influential enemies, some of whom are now accused of putting Dojcinovic’s life in danger.

He is under media attack and apparent surveillance for revealing how the wheels of power turn in Serbia, a Balkan linchpin where he sees the West giving virtual carte blanche to the political elite in exchange for a promise of “stability”.

Panama Papers

Krik has made waves since its launch last July as part of the international Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (OCCRP) that gained prominence this month with its work on the so-called Panama Papers.

Last year, Krik published videos from 2008 and 2009 showing the interior minister of the time, Ivica Dacic, sharing a friendly meal and raising toasts with a drug lord called Rodoljub Radulovic, better known as “Misha Banana”.

He was later convicted in absentia of cocaine smuggling, while Dacic – who claimed ignorance of Radulovic’s criminal exploits – served as prime minister from 2012-14 and is now foreign minister in the cabinet of premier Aleksandar Vucic.

Krik also investigated the business dealings of Vucic’s close ally Sinisa Mali, the mayor of Belgrade, and current health minister Zlatibor Loncar.

It reported that when Loncar was working as a Belgrade hospital doctor in 2002, he received a flat from the infamous Zemun Clan mafia group as a reward for giving a lethal injection to an injured gang member; Loncar has denied the claims.

Last month, however, a pro-government tabloid sprang a surprise on Dojcinovic.

His appearance on the cover of the Informer newspaper was not unusual – it had frequently accused him of working with western intelligence agencies to undermine Vucic and Serbia – but this report was different, and more disturbing.

It contained details of an investigation that Krik had not yet published – into the Vucic family’s wealth – and which could not have been acquired without tapping the phones and following the movements of Dojcinovic and his colleagues.

"I don't care what Informer puts on its pages," says Dojcinovic (31).

“But this was another level: now the state was clearly involved in monitoring what we do and who we talk to.”

In subsequent editions, Informer suggested that Dojcinovic was a French spy with a fetish for sadomasochism, who was working with mafia groups to attack Vucic's family.

Vucic – who was a hard-line information minister under autocrat Slobodan Milosevic in the late 1990s – said he saw nothing wrong with Informer’s articles.

Civil society groups disagreed, warning of possible danger to Dojcinovic, his colleagues and their sources, and questioning Serbia’s media freedom in light of apparent state eavesdropping on Krik.

Such issues will not sway Sunday’s election when – despite enduring unemployment of 18 per cent and an average monthly wage of just €350 – voters are likely to strengthen the ruling Serbian Progressive Party’s hold on power.

Analysts credit Vucic’s personal popularity and political skills for this, as well as a campaign boosted by the backing of mainstream media and big business and a largely uninspiring opposition.

Vucic has morphed from an ultra-nationalist into a pro-EU conservative, while retaining enough “patriotic” appeal to keep votes away from the far right.

Tight control

The EU sees him as the politician best placed to guide Serbia towards accession, while keeping tight control of his country and delivering on key international issues: the improvement of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, co-operation on tackling the refugee crisis and keeping Russian influence in check.

“The EU has a dangerously positive attitude towards Vucic,” says Milica Kostic, a legal adviser at Belgrade’s Humanitarian Law Centre.

The group recently accused Serbia’s army and police of blocking access to files that are needed investigate the 1990s Balkan Wars – this in a country where about 10 per cent of war crime suspects still work for the security services.

“The international community loves to work with Vucic, because he controls everything and so he can pretend that everything’s perfect. The EU seems to thinks it’s better for Serbia to have a strong leader than real democracy and institutions,” says Dojcinovic.

Better economy

“But Serbs didn’t want to join the EU because of the Kosovo issue or relations with Russia. They hoped the accession process would bring more democracy, less corruption and a better economy – and they’re not seeing any of those things.”

More than 230,000 people visited the Krik website this month, when it looked into the Serbs featured in the Panama Papers and how Vucic’s relatives acquired so much property – entirely legally, the premier told Dojcinovic in a recent interview.

Despite Krik’s growing profile, however, Dojcinovic and his eight colleagues do not yet have a budget to last the year. He says they work “25 hours a day” from a small office that costs just €280 a month. They have installed a security camera, but cannot afford to pay a guard or a specialist to sweep for bugs.

However, Dojcinovic is not despondent about Serbia or the attacks on Krik.

“Serbia and the Balkans don’t have to be corrupt – our policies and international policies are to blame. This country can be reformed,” he says.

“I would say, for example, that 80 per cent of the police are good guys, but a couple of officials can destroy all their work. Many of Krik’s sources are frustrated with the system, and they want us to get the information out there.

“The police aren’t allowed to deliver. But in our work, we can finish the story.”