A coalition of international media freedom organizations has called on Montenegro to stop the ongoing persecution of investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic.
Some 12 organizations including Reporters Without Borders, the ECPMF, and the International Press Institute (of which Exit is a member), have reminded the state that it needs to strengthen the independence of its judicial system if it wants to join the European Union.
Martinovic who has published in the Financial Times, The Economist, Time, and has worked with Exit on a cross-border investigation in 2019 and 2020 was arrested in 2015 for drug trafficking and being a member of a criminal investigation while working on an investigation into those very things.
He spent 15 months in pre-trial detention and was then sentenced to 18 months in prison by the High Court of Montenegro in January 2019. In October of the same year, the Appeal Court quashed the verdict and concluded that the court had failed to explain facts and provide evidence that would justify a conviction.
Instead, he was sentenced to one year in prison, time served. This was upheld on appeal last week.
The media organizations have claimed his rights to a fair trial have been violated and that the proceedings against him are politically motivated.
They said the latest decision can also be considered an attempt to “dissuade and chill reporting of corruption and organized crime in Montenegro. Investigative journalism is not a crime and should not be treated as such by the Montenegrin authorities.”
Martinovic tod Exit that the court of appeals refused to answer a single argument during the appeal, let along weigh and deliberate.
“The Montenegro courts are like those in the days of Enver Hoxha,” he said.
