Former President of Grocka Municipality Sentenced to Five Years in Jail for Arson Attack against Journalist

Dragoljub Simonovic: A Suspect in the Attempted Murder of a Journalist

A former president of the Municipality of Grocka, Dragoljub Simonovic, was sentenced on March 20 to five years in jail for having incited an arson attack against a journalist of the Zig Info portal, Milan Jovanovic, whose house was burnt down in 2018.

Simonovic was sentenced for incitement, as he had encouraged other persons to commit a criminal offense defined by the Criminal Code as “general danger.” Aleksandar Marinkovic, Vladimir Mihajlovic and Vladimir Novakovic were sentenced as direct perpetrators to four and a half, four and three and a half years respectively.

The verdict made on March 20 was the second made by the court of first instance, as the first ruling sentencing Simonovic to four and a half years in prison was revoked by the Appellate Court, ordering retrial.

Jovanovic said that the new verdict was “a verdict for every criminal in the world of politics,” hoping that better days were coming for the freedom of the media in Serbia, and that journalists would be able to face fewer restrictions in their work.

The journalist’s message to his peers was that they needed to persevere in the struggle for free media, and that the verdict pronounced to Simonovic “won the battle, not the war,” which younger generations have yet to win.