{"id":1132217,"date":"2023-07-13T17:18:35","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T17:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpj.org\/?p=299613"},"modified":"2023-07-13T17:18:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T17:18:35","slug":"cpj-welcomes-acquittal-of-montenegro-investigative-journalist-jovo-martinovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/07\/13\/cpj-welcomes-acquittal-of-montenegro-investigative-journalist-jovo-martinovic\/","title":{"rendered":"CPJ welcomes acquittal of Montenegro investigative journalist Jovo Martinovi\u0107\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Berlin, July 13, 2023 \u2013 The Committee to Protect Journalists said it welcomed the Montenegro Supreme Court\u2019s Wednesday decision to uphold<\/a> a verdict in January to acquit journalist Jovo Martinovi\u0107<\/a> on drug trafficking charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis decision finally puts an end to the eight-year legal saga involving prominent investigative journalist Jovo Martinovi\u0107, who was twice wrongly convicted on drug-related charges,\u201d said Attila Mong, CPJ\u2019s Europe representative. \u201cThe verdict is a critical vindication for Martinovi\u0107, and we can only hope Montenegro authorities have learned that covering crime does not mean a reporter is involved in criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martinovi\u0107, a prominent investigative journalist who covers crime, was detained<\/a> in 2015, along with 17 others, on suspicion of participating in a drug trafficking ring and held for more than 14 months<\/a> pending a trial on drug-related charges. Martinovi\u0107 denied the charges<\/a> and said they were in retaliation for his journalism.

In 2019, he was sentenced<\/a> to 18 months in prison, but the verdict was overturned<\/a>. In a 2020 retrial, his sentenced was reduced to one year<\/a>; the journalist\u2019s appeal, which was initially rejected<\/a>, went to the Supreme Court, which ordered<\/a> a second retrial. In January 2023, Martinovi\u0107 was acquitted<\/a> of all charges. The prosecution\u2019s appeal<\/a> was denied Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n


\r\nThis content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists<\/a> and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berlin, July 13, 2023 \u2013 The Committee to Protect Journalists said it welcomed the Montenegro Supreme Court\u2019s Wednesday decision to uphold a verdict in January to acquit journalist Jovo Martinovi\u0107 on drug trafficking charges. \u201cThis decision finally puts an end to the eight-year legal saga involving prominent investigative journalist Jovo Martinovi\u0107, who was twice wrongly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5097,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3357,33345,7904,22127,30513,4096,1253,523,65256,65255,2283,25077,65257,98,42642,27150,43673],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1132217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1132217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}