Serbian Minister's Party Vilifies Editor as 'Drug Addict'

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin's Movement of Socialists party lashed out after KRIK published a report on Monday alleging that Vulin bought an apartment in Belgrade under suspicious circumstances with money he had borrowed from his wife's aunt in Canada.

Vulin's party said in a statement that KRIK's editor, Stevan Dojcinovic, was a "drug addict who needs to be tested for drugs", and accused him of being paid by foreigners to attack the minister.

Dojcinovic described the statement from the Movement of Socialists, the junior partner in the ruling coalition in Serbia, as "bizarre".

"But in it, they did not answer one question from our story or deny our discovery," he told BIRN.

He also said he would take legal action.

"I will speak with lawyers and I will file charges against the person responsible [for the statement] at the Movement of Socialists," he added.

KRIK's report on Monday said the Serbian Anti-Corruption Agency sent a report to the prosecutor's office in December 2015 after Vulin bought his apartment in Belgrade with 205,000 euros borrowed from his wife's aunt.

But according to KRIK, the prosecutor's office did nothing about the case for almost two years because, it said, the police ignored its request for them to investigate the matter.

However, after KRIK and the Insajder website first reported on the case in July this year, the prosecutor said it had ended the investigation and that there was no evidence that Vulin committed any criminal offence under its jurisdiction.

Vulin refused to comment on Monday's KRIK allegations, but the Movement of Socialists insisted that all his property was registered and "earned by hard work".

"Does the owner of KRIK have the courage to admit how much money he...