The email of the N1 journalist ended up in tabloids, leading to targeting: Suspicion points to the Special Prosecutor's Office.

This concerns a typical journalistic question regarding the glorification of the late convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić at the match between Partizan and Crvena Zvezda, where a large banner featuring Mladić was unfurled in the stands, with the inscription "Direction Potočari" underneath.

Popović asked the Prosecutor's Office if they would initiate proceedings against one or more individuals for the criminal offense of public approval, denial of the existence of, or significant diminishment of the gravity of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

The email was published in several pro-government tabloids, quoted word for word, and not even the typographical error contained in the question was corrected.

What is also interesting is the timing of the publication.

Popović sent the email to the Prosecutor's Office around 2 PM on September 7, and the correspondence with the Prosecutor's Office was first published by the B92 portal just an hour and a half after the email was sent. Within just a few minutes, the email was published in other tabloids, which presented the text as their own information, raising suspicions that someone from Popović's environment practically sent his email to all the tabloids at the same time.

Popović: I did not write the laws; I only posed a journalistic question

N1 portal journalist Predrag Popović told Danas that, as things stand, his email with the question to the Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade could have only been forwarded to the tabloids by someone within the Prosecutor's Office itself or that the communication was intercepted.

"Those are the only two possibilities, but based on everything we have seen so far, it is much more likely that someone from the Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade forwarded my email than that it was intercepted by some hacking attack," says Popović.

He believes that the email was given to the tabloids because of the very question directed at the Prosecutor's Office regarding Ratko Mladić.

"Because that topic is currently relevant and perhaps serves someone's interests at the moment, as it was on the day of Mladić's funeral. However, I must admit that I am surprised. These are questions that we regularly send. The fact that the Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade more often does not respond to us than responds is one side of the story, but providing tabloids with information and practically influencing incitement is something new," says Popović.

The journalist emphasizes that the publication of the email has violated his privacy and endangered his safety.

"This is classic intimidation and targeting. I have been presented as someone who calls for arrests, as a Serb-hater, while I have been dealing with the laws of this country, parliamentary declarations, and some existing practices. The notion that I called for arrests is nonsense. After all, everyone could read what was written in that question. I did not create those laws; I did not kill people in Srebrenica; I did not issue those judgments. I follow what is happening in our country and how the rule of law functions," Popović states.

He announces that he will initiate legal mechanisms due to this event.

"In any case, I will do what I can in cooperation with NUNS and company lawyers. I will also contact the Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data, as well as international institutions. Additionally, I expect the police to conduct my security assessment," says Popović.

He also emphasizes that he fears for his own safety after all this.

"Only a madman would not feel threatened when targeted in that way. It is a normal feeling when someone reports about you in such a manner and provides context that has nothing to do with reality: what I want, who I am, who educated me, who paid me, a bunch of nonsense, where a target is drawn on me in a country where violence has become everyday life. However, despite everything, I will continue to do what my conscience, morality, and professional standards dictate," says our interlocutor.

Matić: It is unclear what is worse – that the email leaked from the Prosecutor's Office or that the communication was intercepted

The president of the Management Board of ANEM, Veran Matić, believes that the leak of the email sent to the Prosecutor's Office is connected to the glorification of Ratko Mladić.

He told Danas that everything happening around the death and funeral of the convicted war criminal is completely controlled by the top of the government in Serbia.

"A special element is the production of false piety towards Mladić, while in fact, it is about controlling possible damage and scoring points on the death of a criminal who has been fabricated into a patriot and military leader. I believe that the messages at the derby were orchestrated by the government officials, as well as everything that happened before and during the funeral. The production of hysteria has been entrusted to the tabloids, led by Informer, specifically Dragan J. Vučićević, who is known for having read documents provided to him by the police and the Prosecutor's Office countless times, often immediately after arrests and the first statements," says Matić.

He notes that the "leak" through the tabloids is a punishment, an endangerment of safety, targeting, and blamestorming that usually goes unpunished for the tabloids; even when it is punished, it is symbolic and accounted for in the business model.

"This time, it is correspondence between an N1 journalist and the Prosecutor's Office. It is unclear what is worse, whether it was directly provided from the Prosecutor's Office or intercepted through illegal monitoring and communication surveillance. For the past fifteen years, the annual reports of the European Commission have consistently recommended that the leakage of information from the judiciary and the police must be stopped. No progress has ever been made towards resolving this issue," Matić states.

He says that instead, we have escalation.

"The Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, Miodrag Marković, sits in the studio of TV Informer almost as a co-host of the show, presenting data or unfounded accusations and participating, calling on the president of the state to amnesty and exonerate a person who was first accused of attempted murder," Matić recalls.

He asserts that the correspondence contains no disputable details.

"A very professional communication between the journalist and the Prosecutor's Office, but material was needed for the production of hysteria, and this time colleague Popović and N1 were chosen as the notorious bogeyman and enemy. I do not believe that the Prosecutor's Office will investigate how this correspondence was provided, but the Chief Public Prosecutor of Serbia, Zagorka Dolovac, could say something about it and initiate some proceedings to establish the factual situation and responsibility," says Matić.

Our editorial office sent a question to the Prosecutor's Office asking whether they have established who forwarded the email intended for this prosecution to the tabloids, and if not, what measures they will take, but we did not receive a response before the publication of this text.

The tradition of collusion between tabloids and the authorities

The case of the leaked email that an N1 journalist sent to the Prosecutor's Office is not isolated, but rather represents a continuation of a tradition where tabloids receive information directly from judicial authorities or security services.

In recent years, tabloids have published intercepted conversations of students and activists obtained by the BIA, and official notes from police interrogations have been published just minutes after the interrogations ended, as was the case with the president of the SRCE party, Zdravko Ponoš, who provided a statement to the police regarding the sound cannon.

Tabloids have published photographs of activists and students from their personal documents, which are held exclusively by the police and the BIA.

For all these cases, no serious investigation has ever been conducted, nor has it been determined who from these services provides information to the tabloids, which do not serve the public interest but rather the targeting of individuals or groups.

As for this latest event, a similar occurrence happened back in 2020 when Dragan Šutanovac sent an authorial text to the editor-in-chief of Nedeljnik, Veljko Lalić. Lalić informed him that the text would not be published and it remained only in the electronic communication between Šutanovac, Lalić, and the responsible editor Marko Prelević.

Then, the then Minister of Defense, Aleksandar Vulin, publicly reacted precisely to that unpublished authorial text. Tanjug reported on February 16 Vulin's statement explicitly stating that he was responding to "the authorial text of Dragan Šutanovac in Nedeljnik."

Unlike the current case, where there is reasonable suspicion that someone from the Prosecutor's Office forwarded the email to the tabloids, in the case of the unpublished text in "Nedeljnik," it was most likely a case of unauthorized access to information that was in the possession of the editorial office.