A Sokobanja district court found Ristic, editor of the independent television station TV Soko in Sokobanja, guilty of disseminating false information under Article 218 of the Serbian penal code. He was sentenced to one year in prison. The charges stemmed from a police raid on Ristic’s office. The police found a poster with the logo of the Belgrade-based independent radio station B92 and the slogan “Free Press: Made in Serbia!”
Ristic’s lawyers appealed the decision on April 26, but the appeal was denied. During a September meeting with a CPJ representative in Belgrade, Federal Information Minister Goran Matic promised to investigate the case, but by year’s end Matic had not responded to several additional requests for information from CPJ.