BELGRADE, 28.06.2019. – N1 legal team brought criminal charges against Goran Vesic, Belgrade’s Deputy Mayor, on Thursday “for reasonable suspicion that he committed a crime by violating the privacy of letters and other correspondence, according to the Criminal Code article 142, paragraph 3.”
The charges are filed with the Higher Public Prosecutors’ Office, Department for Hi-Tech crime.
“The suspect Goran Vesic told a news conference he was familiar with the electronic correspondence between N1 reporters and that he would make it public. After that, a part of the electronic mail sent by the N1 executive producer to N1 journalists on June 16, was published on Goran Vesic’s Facebook profile,” the lawyers said.
The electronic mail contained a detailed plan of N1 reporters’ job for June 17, and a warning the “this email including any attachments may be privileged or confidential and is intended exclusively for the addressee,” and that it should not be shared, used or disclosed to others.
The publishing of its content violated the confidentiality of N1 electronic correspondence, N1 legal team said.
The criminal charges also included an unknown individual suspected of “an unauthorised access to a protected computer, computer’s network and electronic process of N1 TV data and in that way obtained certain data which was then sent to another individual, what constitutes the crime under the Penal Code article 302, paragraph 1 and 2.”
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has told reporters that Vesic should be held responsible if he obtained the information illegally.
Rodoljub Sabic, the former Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, said that if Vesic had the N1 internal correspondence, he might face from two to three years in jail.
Journalists’ organisation also reacted to Vesic’s move and the Independent Association of Serbia’s Journalists (NUNS) said it was an attempt to intimidate N1 journalists.