Football Club Sarajevo said on Sunday that it is in no way connected to the Friday evening incident when persons who said they were fans of the club entered the premises of a local news portal and threatened journalists.

The incident took place after RadioSarajevo.ba published a fact-checked article about a fan of FC Sarajevo who was sentenced to five years in prison in Belarus for drug possession.

After the article was published, the journalists and editors “faced unprecedented death threats,” which also targeted their families, a Radiosarajevoba press release said.

Member of news portal’s editorial board, Faruk Vele, said the incident was preceded by threatening phone calls. According to him, the journalist who published the article was also forced to call other media outlets that published the story and ask them to remove it.

Police detained two suspected perpetrators on Saturday.

“Football Club Sarajevo, as a socially responsible club, does not support any kind of violence and threats to media freedom,” the club said in a press release, adding that it is not its responsibility to conduct the work of the Ministry of Interior, the Prosecutor’s Office and other institutions.