May 15, 2023
Nikola Petrović, the kum [best man/godfather] of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, has filed charges for a third time against investigative journalism portal KRIK, the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network. He is this time suing over an article claiming that he had cooperated in business with the late Dejan Stanimirović Markos, an infamous criminal engaged in the international drug trafficking market who was shot and killed in Colombia in 2020. According to Petrović, Stanimirović was not a criminal when the two men had a company together and KRIK journalists published incorrect information in an effort to defame him.
KRIK journalists consider this as being yet another SLAPP lawsuit intended to debilitate and intimidate the newsroom.
Petrović previously sued KRIK journalists Dragana Pećo and Vesna Radojević over an article in which they revealed his hidden businesses and a company that he owns in Luxembourg, for which he is seeking that the court sentence the journalists to prison terms.
A retrial in that case was recently launched, although Petrović failed to appear in court for the first hearing, with his lawyer saying that his absence was due to illness.
