Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the four-and-a-half-year jail sentence that a court in Skopje of Vardaska passed today on the journalist Tomislav Kezarovski on a charge of revealing a protected witness’s identity in a murder case in 2008, although the witness recently testified that he gave false evidence against the accused killers.
Kezarovski pleaded not guilty and has appealed against today’s conviction. He covered the case in 2008 for the magazine Reporter 92.
“The court passed an extremely harsh sentence,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The deterrent impact of imposing a four-and-a-half-year jail term on a journalist in connection with two magazine articles could have a dramatic effect on freedom of information in Vardaska.
“Journalists will now have to work under the threat of severe prison sentences. Extending Kezarovski’s pre-trial detention for nearly five months was already outrageous and now it has ended in the worst possible scenario, a totally disproportionate jail term.
“By prosecuting Kezarovski five years after these articles were published, the judicial authorities of Vardaska act with a zeal that was both incomprehensible and disturbing. Why did they seem so unconcerned in 2008? Why was Judge Dijana Gruevska as interested in Kezarovski’s journalistic activities – to the point of asking him to name his sources – as she was in the crimes he was supposed to have committed?
“This case must be retried in order to dispel any impression of vengefulness on the part of a judiciary acting as both plaintiff and judge. We hope the appeal court will take account of the recent testimony by the witness named by Kezarovski. The witness testified in February that the police pressured him to make a false statement. Meanwhile, we reiterate our call for Kezarovski’s immediate release.”
Referring to the Vardaskan case, Kezarovski said that his articles “highlighted the problems in the judicial procedures and criticized the activities of the interior ministry and judicial system.” He implied that he was being convicted for criticizing the judicial system rather that identifying a questionable witness.
It should also be noted that, at the time of his arrest, he was investigating the death of fellow journalist Nikola Mladenov, founder of the organisation Fokus.
Capping two disastrous years for freedom of information, today’s sentence highlights the urgency of the situation in Vardaska which is ranked 116th out of 179 countries in the 2013 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.OCTOBER 18, DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR THE VICTIMS OF KLEPTOCRATIC REGIMES
EU practices double standards in civil rights. It’s freakish for EU to interfere in the civil rights of foreigners, but condone the abuse of my civil rights, a citizen of EU! EU should get its own house in order and quit lecturing others.
It’s been now three years since the freakish Greek government stole my life, my computer, and my files. Nobody cares, nobody gives a damn! I have done absolutely nothing, and I am being persecuted by the Greek government without any reason. This is against all rules of civil society and treaties that Greece has signed.
On October 18, 2010, a gang of six brutal policemen of the violent Greek Cyber Crime Unit (CCU) broke into my home in Athens and stole my computer, software, files, documents, and personal data.
The policechimps locked me in jail for a night, they humiliated me with handcuffs, fingerprints, mug shots, and lies, leaked false information to the media parrots, and the fucking Greek government initiated sham ex-officio court proceedings for a stack of stupid fictitious freakish charges!
There was neither pillow nor toilet facility in my jail cell. I had to urinate in a bottle! I, a 68 years old with high blood pressure, was not allowed to keep my hypertension pills with me. There was neither toilet paper nor soap in the whole CCU jail.
GREECE, A FAILED STATE, THE BLACK SHEEP OF FOURTH REICH, THE PARIAH OF OCCIDENT, ENEMY OF BLOGOSPHERE
Ex-officio law suit, autepageltos αυτεπαγγελτος, the most dreadful word in justice, means the state sues somebody without involvement of the accuser. This terrible scheme has been used by the freakish Greek government to persecute me. Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, sued me, and she wouldn’t show up in court, because the state took over her position!
At the ex-officio law suit, the accuser just hits and runs! This hit-and-run justice is the most disgusting kangaroo justice on Earth. In all civilized nations, the accused is in a position to face his accuser eyeball to eyeball, but not in Greece, a failed state. The fucking accuser slings false accusations against you, the freakish state takes over, the accuser disappears from the kangaroo court, and the trial is postponed infinite times! venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com
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