Montenegro Quashes Drug Case Against Investigative Journalist

Montenegrin investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic (left) arriving at court in Podgorica. Photo: BIRN/Samir Kajosevic

The Appeals Court delivered its verdict after the Montenegrin Supreme Court last June ordered a second retrial for Martinovic.

"After more than seven years of court proceedings and 15 months of detention, I was finally declared innocent. It was a terrible burden, but when your conscience is clear and you know that you are innocent, then everything can be endured," Martinovic told BIRN.

Martinovic was arrested in October 2015 alongside 17 others from Montenegro in a joint police operation conducted with Croatian police. He spent almost a year and a half in custody before being released in January 2017 ahead of the trial.

He was convicted in the first-instance ruling in January 2019 of drug trafficking and membership of a criminal organisation, but the Appeals Court overturned the verdict and ordered the first retrial, which again ended with a conviction.

The journalist always insisted he had made contacts with alleged drug traffickers only as part of his legitimate reporting work.

Martinovic had made contact in 2015 with two of the 17 suspects who were arrested: Dusko Martinovic - no relation to the journalist - and Namik Selmanovic.

Dusko Martinovic, the main suspect in the case, was also a convicted member of a gang of jewel thieves known as the Pink Panthers.

Operating in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, they are believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of euros' worth of jewellery.

Journalist Martinovic worked with Dusko Martinovic on a series of TV shows about the robbers produced by the Vice media group.

He worked alongside Selmanovic when a French production company...