Montenegrin police late on Sunday evening arrested two journalists of pro-Serb news websites on the suspicion that they had committed a criminal offence of causing panic in the public.

Gojko Raicevic and Drazen Zivkovic, editors of the in4.net and borba.me websites respectively, were taken in for questioning on Sunday evening and placed in 72-hour police custody after they disseminated fake news about an explosion in Vila Gorica Palace in which senior state officials give receptions for distinguished guests, police said on Monday.

Both editors are suspected of posting a news item about the explosion without first checking whether the information was correct.

The fake news was later disseminated by Serbian media under the headlines “Chaos in Vila Gorica” and “Cause of the explosion in Milo's residence believed to be a blast”, referring to President Milo Djukanovic.

The Montenegrin government immediately refuted the news report, saying that there had been no explosion but only a minor fault in electrical installations.