The District Court in Banja Luka sentenced one of the two attackers who, according to the ruling, tried to kill BN journalist Vladimir Kovacevic in 2018 to four years in prison on Tuesday but the motive behind the attack remains unknown.
Two men wearing hoods had beaten BN TV journalist Vladimir Kovacevic with batons in the evening of August 26, 2018, while he was walking home from work.
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The Prosecutor’s Office in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of Bosnia's semi-autonomous Republika Srpska (RS) entity, characterized it as a case of attempted murder.
One of the attackers was Nedeljko Djukic, who refused to attend his sentencing on Tuesday. Neither his lawyer, Nebojsa Pantic, nor the prosecutor in the case gave statements to the media.
Djukic had pleaded not guilty at the beginning of the trial but changed his mind on Monday. He admitted his involvement and apologised to the journalist.
Kovacevic did not comment on the ruling but insisted that those who ordered the attack and the motive behind it must be revealed.
“The issue that remains hanging in the air is who ordered it? Nobody is mentioning that. I am sure that the motive is some of the stories I have worked on in the past years, which refer to crime and corruption in the RS and Bijeljina, but I cannot say that for sure,” Kovacevic said, according to the BH Journalists Association.
The trial lasted for more than two years and included testimonies of numerous witnesses.
Following the attack, the RS Interior Minister, Dragan Lukac, claimed that it did not have a political background and that nobody from the government was involved.
The other attacker, Marko Colic, is also in prison. He was in July 2019 sentenced to four years behind bars for the attack but after an appeals process, his sentence was changed to five years in prison.
