BELGRADE, SERBIA - Dragan Djilas, president of the Democratic Party and Mayor of Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, has sued the biggest daily newspaper in Serbia – Kurir – for the sum of one billion euros. This is the highest single compensation claim made against a single media company in the history of the world.
Djilas, a media tycoon and one of the wealthiest people in the Balkans, filed charges against Kurir because of “endured mental suffering and damage to personal honour and reputation”. In the past few months Kurir has written about numerous scandals associated with Djilas, using material from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Centre for Investigative Reporting in Serbia (CINS).
Đilas also used the complaint to request that Kurir be prohibited from writing about him until the trial ends. The rich Belgrade mayor is the owner of marketing agency Dajrekt Media (Direct Media), which controls more than half of the entire advertising market in the Serbian media.
