01. 10. 2004

BK group attacks Blic

BELGRADE, October 1, 2004, (B92) – A public row has been brewing over the past few days between Belgrade daily Blic and Bogoljub Karic’s BK Group. Blic has published a series of articles about the BK Group transferring funds to private accounts. Editor-in-Chief Veselin Simonovic defended the articles, saying his newspaper has published only arguments and facts relating to Mobtel. “The public is particularly interested in this subject and the operation of this company. The interest has probably grown because, according to government claims, half of the equity of the company is in public hands. We were investigating the way in which funds had been siphoned off through joint firms. We asked a lot of questions and uncovered the workings of a system through which certain people have been looting the country,” said Simonovic. He added that, given the strong criticism of the paper on BK television over the past few days, Blic had asked for answers from BK TV on twelve significant issues. “They told us they would provide answers when the court had finished its part of the work. As for the attacks from BK TV, Blic has no intention of responding. What Bogoljub Karic read on TV BK was a pamphlet with no sense. This is the screaming of someone who has no response to a single point in our article. What response could we make? We published our response on the cover page of yesterday’s edition: Who lies, steals. I don’t believe there can be any better response than this,” said the Blic editor-in-chief.