The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro is offering a monetary reward of one million euros for information that credibly and decisively contributes to the identification of those responsible for the murder of the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Dan, Dusko Jovanovic, committed 21 years ago in Podgorica.
This is stated in a document from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro, signed by Minister Danilo Saranovic.
With this reward promise, Montenegro is demonstrating a clear and unequivocal determination to finally, after 21 years, shed light on the murder of Jovanovic.
“The public promise of a reward is not just an operational measure of police work – it is also a message and a sign of institutional commitment that no crime, especially one against media freedom, can or should be forgotten,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs’s document states.
Clarifying this murder is, according to the Ministry, a test of the maturity of institutions, the integrity of the legal order, and the readiness to break the cycle of impunity.
“In the name of justice, truth, and responsibility – the public promise of a reward is a step in that direction,” the document of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro emphasizes.
The editor-in-chief of Dan, Dusko Jovanovic, was murdered fifteen minutes before midnight on May 27th, 2004, in front of the Dan newsroom. Bursts of gunfire rang out just as Jovanovic, having closed that edition of the paper, was preparing to head home.
Recently, Damir Mandic, the only person finally convicted as a co-perpetrator in the murder of Jovanovic, completed his 19-year prison sentence, to which he had been sentenced.
