Transparency International slandered by pro-government media in RS for Disclosing Brod Oil Refinery’s privatisation contract

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has found that the pro-government media in Republika Srpska ran a smear campaign against Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) after it had disclosed the acquired contract on the privatisation of the Oil Refinery in Brod. 

The Court ruled that the “racketeering affair” was designed with the deliberate intent to discredit TI BiH, that RS officials were obviously in collusion with the press, and that the campaign started immediately after the publication of TI BiH’s analysis of the privatisation contract. Shortly after the analysis was published a “repentant witness” Vladimir Latinović appeared in the media claiming for days that he had racketeered well-known businesspeople together with a former TI BiH employee. This was followed by a spate of testimonies by alleged “victims of racketeering” and an unprecedented media onslaught, forcing TI BiH to temporarily close its Banja Luka office. Even though all charges were subsequently dismissed by the investigators as unfounded, it took TI BiH as long as ten years to get justice in court. It was not until recently that the Constitutional Court branded the whole affair was – a slander.

Dodik worked in conjunction with the press

It all began in late May 2008, when TI BiH published preliminary findings of its monitoring of the privatisation of the oil industry in the Republika Srpska (RS), showing that the damage to public resources had already reached about a billion convertible marks. The findings became a taboo subject and almost none of the media outlets in RS ever published them, despite the obvious relevance of the topic.

It wasn’t a month later that an all-out media onslaught was launched. Already on 1 July a “protected witness” appeared in a supposed investigation which had actually never been launched, and headlines such as “Businesspeople Blackmailed by TI BiH Employees” featured prominently on the cover pages of the pro-government press. The whole story was based on allegations by Vladimir Latinović, who was initially code-named in the media reports as Mario, claiming that he had racketeered businesspeople together with his friend and former TI BIH employee, offering to them a removal from the Office of the High Representative’s (OHR) blacklist of politically connected companies. The campaign was soon joined by the public service broadcaster with its prime-time coverage of the story. The situation was further inflamed by the statements of the then RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, who publicly vowed to afford protection to the “witness”. The Constitutional Court has found it indicative that Dodik’s statements closely coincided with media reports and conclusions, which were all ultimately aimed at defaming those who criticise the government.

Protected witnesses in an investigation that did not exist

In the first article Latinović mentioned having racketeered three businessmen, of whom journalists contacted only Savo Krunić, former director of Srpske šume[RS public forestry company], who denied all allegations, as did Zoran Čolović Čavka, the alleged middleman in racketeering. However, that did not prevent the media from fabricating the story by levelling accusations of organised racketeering directly against TI BiH, without ever contacting them or giving them a chance to counter the allegations.

According to the article, Latinović stated before the BiH Prosecutor’s Office that he had participated in the racketeering even though this institution did not pursue any investigation at the time. The same conclusion was reached by the BiH Constitutional Court, which states that the journalists deliberately used legal procedural terminology such as “protected witness” or “repentant witness”, even though the use of such terms was misleading at a time when there was no investigation, never distancing themselves from the allegations. Even Milorad Dodik kept referring in the same article to the investigation pursued by the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, despite the spokesman for the institution Boris Grubešić denying that there was any investigation underway. However, that did not halt further engineering of the made-up investigation thus adding weight to the entire fabrication.

Immediately the following day, the media reported that, instead of the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, Latinović gave the statement to the RS Police. Latinović refused to comment on that. The campaign continued with the alleged “victims of racketeering” popping up in droves in the media, the first of whom was Miloš Lazović called ‘the Duke from Višegrad’. He claimed that money had been extorted from him by Latinović and one former TI BiH employee, the latter of whom came out publicly for the first time to deny those allegations, and subsequently remained silent through the rest of the media blitz. His silence about the monstrous accusations levelled against him was enough for journalist to draw into the whole story the then Chairman of the TI BiH Board of Directors Boris Divjak, who, according to the new so-called witnesses, had been aware of the racketeering as well as of documents being forged in TI BiH premises.

For none of this a slightest shred of evidence was ever presented. What was curious in the whole story, however, was the conduct of the RS Police, which kept feeding new information to the media day after day, lending weight to the story and helping the manhunt campaign to continue publicly for as long as possible. For the first nine days of the campaign the police refused to comment, and on the tenth day the then director of police for the first time publicly confirmed that an investigation was launched. The following day a report was submitted to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office against Latinović, an officer of the BiH Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) and a former TI BiH employee. On the seventeenth day it was made public that the RS Police had formed a special team.

Journalistic ethics and spirit of totalitarianism

In the meantime, Latinović continued levelling serious accusations against TI BiH, both of forging documents as well as of conspiring with a number of ITA and RS Tax Administration employees to create a criminal network. By conveying his statements at face value, pro-government media outlets consistently failed to abide by the rules of professional conduct. Furthermore, their tendentious headlines and comments proved that they were not well-intentioned, their editorial comments were in clear violation of the code of journalist ethics, they denied the other side the right of reply and failed to uphold the presumption of innocence. These are all conclusions of the Constitutional Court, which further explained that the media are indeed entitled to their editorial comments as long as they act reasonably and in accordance with the professional standards.

Notwithstanding the scandalous reporting by the media, what was even more baffling was the behaviour of the RS Association of Journalists, whose president at the time condemned the international diplomats for calling for a stop to the manhunt against TI BiH. Aligned with them was the RS Association of Young Journalists and Pero Simić, former journalist from Bijeljina (afterwards to become an adviser to RS President Milorad Dodik), who sent a letter to the OHR and, in his own words, delivered a complete video, audio and printed documentation on the ‘racketeering’ or ‘blacklist’ affair. All allegations made in this purported affair were effectively dismissed by the BiH Prosecutor Office’s refusal to pursue any investigation into the case, and the role of the media was fully exposed by the judgment of the Constitutional Court.

Interestingly, the then-established tactic of the media-led demonisation of all those who criticise authorities has become a routine practice. Nowadays, the accusations of such organised crime have fallen out of fashion and the pro-government media upgraded their accusations of e.g. trade unionists, employees of the RS Railway Company, or members of the group ‘Justice for David’ as no less than mounting a coup. Government-controlled media increasingly launch such serious accusations in prime time news, while the other side is denied the right to respond, and with ever fewer independent media outlets to present any differing view. The pro-government media, reinforced by the RS Police, continue to create an illusion of investigative authorities working actively on trumped-up accusations against political opponents, which ultimately results in creation of climate of fear and terror.