Serbian Tabloid Targets BIRN after Airline Revelations

Informer on Wednesday wrote that journalists from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and Serbia’s Centre for Investigative Journalism, CINS, had been stalking Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, causing him to cancel his summer holiday - its second highly critical report about BIRN following the high-profile airline contract investigation.

Citing an unnamed government source, the tabloid newspaper claimed that Vucic cancelled his vacation at Serbia’s Lake Bor two weeks ago after learning that “suspicious guys” from BIRN and CINS were staying at the same hotel. “Vucic cancels vacation because of ‘spies’ in hotel,” the headline read.

The allegations follow publication of a BIRN investigation into whether Serbia overpaid for an airline contract with the United Arab Emirates carrier Etihad.

The investigation, published by BIRN and in the weekly Vreme news magazine, revealed that for a 51-per-cent stake in the newly founded company, Air Serbia, Serbia paid several times more than its UAE partner.

The director of BIRN Serbia, Dragana Obradovic, said the tabloid’s allegations were a campaign to discredit the work of BIRN and CINS.

“Nobody was in Bor to spy on the Prime Minister, which is a ridiculous claim, considering that BIRN and CINS are far from paparazzi journalism,” Obradovic said.

Last Saturday, Informer also alleged that the EU was secretly financing BIRN and CINS, which were keeping contracts with the European Commission worth millions of euros.

Obradovic explained that BIRN and CINS won a project through a public call and said that BIRN had not sought to hide the contracts but had directed Informer to the EU mission in Serbia, which has the right to reveal...