Serbian Ombudsman 'Targeted by Media Attacks'

Jankovic said on Monday that recent media slurs against his character were an example of "the tabloidisation of state and society that I have been warning about for years".

He was to reacting to claims made on Saturday by tabloid newspaper Informer that he was interrogated by police in 1993 for keeping an illegal weapon which was used by a man who committed suicide in his apartment.

Informer claimed that the case was covered up, and that Serbia's former Democratic Party-led government and the security services then used the case to blackmail Jankovic.

But Jankovic denied this.

"Of all the claims that were published about me on April 18, it is only true that in 1993, my close friend died in the apartment where I lived," he said in a statement.

"It is not true that I was detained and interrogated for keeping illegal weapons used to commit suicide," he added.

The Informer report was followed by verbal attacks on Jankovic by officials from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.

Aleksandar Jovicic of the Serbian Progressive Party said Jankovic was "a disgrace and not the guardian of the people".

Jankovic came under fire in January after he filed criminal charges against two members of the military police on suspicion that they attacked members of a special police unit called the Gendarmerie while they were on duty.

The incident occurred during the Belgrade Pride in September 2014, when members of the Gendarmerie clashed with two members of the military police, along with the prime minister's brother Andrej Vucic and Predrag Mali, the brother of the mayor of Belgrade.

At the time some politicians from the ruling Progressive Party said Jankovic was undermining Serbia's stability.