Editor shot dead in Montenegro

2004-05-28 10:25

Podgorica, Serbia-Montenegro - Gunmen shot and killed the editor of a conservative daily newspaper in Montenegro early on Friday, witnesses said.

Dusko Jovanovic, the editor-in-chief of the daily Dan, was shot with an automatic rifle as he entered his car in front of the paper's head office in Podgorica, witnesses said.

Jovanovic, who was frequently critical of the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, was hit in the chest and the head and died later at a hospital, the paper said. The assailants fled in a dark car. witnesses said.

An early Friday edition of Dan said Jovanovic had received numerous death threats.

The murder "is the most horrible form of silencing Dan," the paper said. "It was not just a shooting of a brave man, but shooting into free speech and independent journalism and democracy."

There was no immediate government comment on Jovanovic's killing.

The Dan has been the subject of several libel lawsuits. Djukanovic had filed a lawsuit against Jovanovic and the Dan for publishing stories that linked the prime minister to human trafficking. A court hearing on the lawsuit was to begin next month.

In 2003, the UN war crimes tribunal charged Jovanovic with contempt for publishing the name of a protected prosecution witness in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The witness had been promised secrecy by the court, but received threatening telephone calls after the paper and others revealed his identity.

The UN charges were dropped last month after Jovanovic apologised in an editorial in which he expressed "true remorse" over the incident.

- AP