Bosnia’s Security Minister Dragan Mektic said that the goal of the attack against BN TV’s journalist Vladimir Kovacevic was to murder him and that he was saved only because he managed to cry for help.

“Their intention was to kill him. What saved him was the fact that he managed to call for help and that he was next to his apartment building so that his neighbours were able to run towards him and save his life,” Mektic said. “This was a typical lynching, but this time it's directed against journalists.”

The Bijeljina based BN TV's reporter Vladimir Kovacevic was severely beaten, Sunday night, in the city of Banjaluka, when two men with hoods on their heads started beating him with expandable batons. After the attack, Kovacevic was admitted to hospital where they treated his injuries.

Mektic recalled how the President of the Serb-dominated, semi-autonomous Republika Srpska entity, Milorad Dodik, once said that his problem was not the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), but BN TV. Prior to this statement, Mektic said, Dodik called journalists ‘foreign agents’ and that they are paid by various foreign embassies, implying they are traitors of the RS and Serb people.

“There is a divisive atmosphere among Serbs in the RS and it’s being created by the RS authorities and the RS President,” he stressed.

In this way, he added, people are being targeted and thus they are getting attacked.