High-ranking officials of the National Security Agency (ANB) participated in the creation of the Udar portal, and the authorities did nothing to protect more Montenegrin citizens from defamatory content from that media.
This is stated in two more first-instance verdicts in which the state was declared guilty and obliged to pay 3.000 euros each to the "Vijesti" journalist. Sinisa Lukovic and a long-time politician Velizar Kaluđerović due to the violation of honor and reputation.
On that website, launched on the eve of the parliamentary elections, both were labeled as collaborators of the Serbian intelligence service - Luković with a code name Rus, and Kaluđerović with a nickname kalimero.
"The injured personal assets of the plaintiff are immeasurable in money and an equivalence relationship cannot be established between them, because compensation for non-material damage is not compensation, but satisfaction for the plaintiff, which he needs to restore his psychological balance, which was violated by the violation of his personal rights," he states. in the verdict on the politician's lawsuit, which she pronounced Milena Brajović.
He is represented by a lawyer in that case Nikola Angelovski.
In the judgments, it practically says that the state did not make an effort to find out who is behind the Udar portal, despite the fact that it used a national domain, and that the authorities did not even take an interest in why there is no legally prescribed imprint, even after the lawsuits were filed...
"it was easy for the defendant (the state) to confide in the identity of the owner (of the portal), but it did not do so," it says in the first-instance decision on Lukovic's lawsuit.
Witnesses
In the verdict on the lawsuit against Kaluđerović, it is stated that he is the former director of ANB Dejan Vuksic testifying, he said that already at the beginning of his mandate in 2021, he learned that certain employees of that institution participated in the creation of the "Udar" affair...
"And that after the investigation he established that high-ranking officials directly and knowingly participated in the creation of the affair in such a way that they were under direct orders Dejan Peruničić (former director of ANB) certain people observed and followed certain politicians and citizens of Montenegro, who were opponents of the government at that time," the verdict reads.
He explained, as stated, that in this particular case there were several actions led by "a certain Danilo Grozdanić", who ordered a specific manager, Srđan Pavićević, to follow a certain number of citizens together with his team, trying to obtain the so-called compromising material.
"Since there were several such actions that resulted in the recording of certain citizens, the related documentation was stored in one computer in one external hard drive, which was finally handed over to the then director Dejan Peruničić. By the way, all those photos, and recordings that were obtained without the director's order and approval, were later published on the Udar.me portal, which are still available on YouTube to this day. At the end, he added that he had filed a criminal complaint with the competent prosecutor's office about all of this, and that the persons who participated even made an official note and that they admitted, that is, that they did not dispute anything, considering that they did it for patriotic reasons," he quotes. Vukšić in the court decision.
The court should especially bear in mind that this is an internet media, and that the consequences of the violation of the personal rights of the plaintiff cannot be completely removed, because such media rely on companies such as "Google" in order to transmit and index trillions of web pages available, so information can be obtained at any time by searching for a person by name and surname
It is stated that the court also accepted the testimony as true Dritan Abazović, because he "spoke clearly and convincingly about the illegal activities of ANB officials and their way of acting"...
"And that he also agrees with the testimony of the witness Dejan Vukšić, the former director of ANB, who essentially pointed out that when he came to the position of director, he came to know that some officials of ANB participated in the creation of the so-called affair. portal Udar.me".
They asked you on the street if you were a traitor
Luković said in court that ten days before the parliamentary and local elections in Tivat, friends called him and asked if he had seen what was published...
He said that at the same time they asked him if he was a traitor, because on the Udar portal it is written that he is an associate of the Serbian and Russian intelligence services, that he allegedly has some contacts...
On July 10, 2020, the registration of the internet publication - portal Udar was carried out and its existence was visible to the general public shortly after that, but the state did not react even after the lawsuits
He said that he opened that website and was shocked.
"To this day, he doesn't know who the people behind that portal are, and that frustrates him the most because he doesn't know who slandered him and caused problems for him personally and his family members, who have nothing to do with his professional work. After it was announced, a campaign started on social networks, he was labeled as a traitor, a servant of Serbia and Russia, a hater of Montenegrins, that he is consciously working against this country, that he is a mercenary of the Church of Serbia, and that lasted for a long time. This happened not only on social networks, but people on the street also told him that he was a traitor, he was put in a situation where everyone was attacking him and he had no way to defend himself and to respond," the court said in part of Luković's testimony.
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