Court decides – fugitive Stefan Karganović slandered the association he put on the list of “destroyers of Republika Srpska”

The list of “destroyers of the Republika Srpska”, compiled by fugitive Stefan Karganović without any evidence, was aimed at slandering non-governmental organizations, media and individuals, the Basic Court in Banja Luka concluded.

Banja Luka, March 2, 2020 – The list of “destroyers of the Republika Srpska”, compiled by fugitive Stefan Karganović without any evidence, was aimed at slandering non-governmental organizations, media and individuals, the Basic Court in Banja Luka concluded. After five years of trial, three associations on Karganovic’s list, including Transparency International in BiH, BUKA magazine and the Helsinki Parliament, have won a lawsuit against the former director of the “Srebrenica historic project”, who is currently on the run for tax evasion.

The Besjeda publishing house and its editor-in-chief Nenad Novaković, who published Karganović’s book “Demolition of the Republika Srpska, Theory and Technology of Coup” 6 years ago, were also declared responsible by the first-instance verdict. The book, which is still published on the SNSD’s official website, contains a list that claims to be a structure of ” fake NGOs that are on standby and waiting for a moment from foreign commanders to get involved in inciting riots and undermining the constitutional order .” The court concluded that this construction was aimed at slandering and discrediting the prosecutors.

“What is written crosses the line of expressing opinions because it marks prosecutors as potential destroyers of the constitutional order of the Republika Srpska. Prosecutors are duly registered with the court as citizens’ associations, and the goals of these associations are, among other things, to encourage the development of civil society and cooperation with government institutions, which was frozen for some time due to distrust of government institutions towards prosecutors.“It is stated in the verdict of the Basic Court in Banja Luka.

The court also rejected attempts by the editor-in-chief of “Besjeda”, Nenad Novakovic, to prove that he was not a publisher, because he claimed that the logo on Karganovic’s book differed from the original and that the book was published without his knowledge. The court rejected these allegations as unfounded and ordered Novaković to jointly compensate the damage to the prosecutors together with Karganović.

The Basic Court in Banja Luka ordered the detention of Stefan Karganović and issued a warrant for his arrest for tax evasion of over 100,000 KM. An NGO whose director he has been since 2008. until 2014 In 2016, she received about two million marks from the RS authorities [1] , and due to illegal spending and tax evasion, the RS Ministry of the Interior filed a report against him with the Prosecutor’s Office in 2016. . Regardless of that, Karganović is still at large, in August 2018. He appeared in Belgrade at the presentation of his new book, and continued to present similar constructions about the “destroyers of Republika Srpska” through the government and pro-government media in RS, attributing the same accusation to the Justice for David group . Karganovic’s book was just one in a series of attempts to discredit NGOs and independent media in RS, which are regularly confronted by the authorities with accusations of “betrayal” of “planning colored revolutions”, “destroying the constitutional order” and similar constructions.

Transparency international in BiH

Center for Information Decontamination of Youth Banja Luka

Helsinški parlament građana Banja Luka

[1] https://impulsportal.net/index.php/kolumne/drustvo/17358-prevarant-stefan-karganovic-i-dalje-honorarac-vlasti-rs

[2] https://vidovdan.org/info/republika-srpska-na-ostrici-brijaca/?script=lat

Press rls_2.3.2020.