KRIK

Serbian leaders, including President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, have defended Finance Minister Sinisa Mali, accusing Serbia's Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK, of lying about him.

Several pro-government tabloids on Friday ran front pages linking the widely respected investigative media portal KRIK to a brutal gang whose key members have been arrested and charged with murder, torture and drug trafficking.

The Stockhold-based international human rights organisation, Civil Rights Defenders, has condemned what it called "the shameless campaign of the Serbian pro-government tabloid media" against a Serbian investigative media portal, Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK.

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin's Movement of Socialists party lashed out after KRIK published a report on Monday alleging that Vulin bought an apartment in Belgrade under suspicious circumstances with money he had borrowed from his wife's aunt in Canada.

The apartment of Dragana Peco, a Serbian journalist with the investigative network KRIK, was broken into on Friday, while she was out of the city.

The police took fingerprints from the scene, while KRIK announced that they would insist on the police conducting a thorough investigation.

Serbian reporter Milka Domanovic on Thursday accused the Mayor of Belgrade of "denial", after his office dismissed claims that he had pushed her away while she was trying to ask him some questions.

Sinisa Mali's office has denied the incident, saying it was clear that journalists from Istinomer and the investigative network KRIK were trying "to provoke the mayor and cause incidents".

Media outlets all over the Balkans are scanning the leaked data from Mossack Fonseca to find out which of their own nationals are named in the 11.5 million files.

The documents from the fourth largest law firm in the world, known as the Panama Papers, show the many ways in which rich people around the world have exploited secretive offshore tax regimes and tax havens.

About 40 journalists from the informal organization "Journalists Network" have called on colleagues throughout former Yugoslavia to show solidarity with the Serbian journalists being targeted by Serbia's pro-government media.

Serbia's pro-government tabloid Informer on Thursday accused KRIK journalist Stevan Dojcinovic of planning to publish a false article about Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, alleging he had concealed ownership of millions-worth of assets.

A slur campaign against three independent media organisations in Serbia, led by the Serbian tabloid Informer and national broadcaster TV Pink, is ramping up again with Informer claiming today that foreign grants were given to NGOs on dates that coincide with the publication of "false affairs against people close to the government".