07. 08. 2012

President meets with journalists he pardoned

Belgrade, August 7, 2012 (B92, Tanjug) - President Tomislav Nikolić received on Tuesday in Belgrade Serbian journalist Laslo Šaš (Laszlo Szasz), whom he pardoned last week.

Šaš was imprisoned after a court in Subotica found him guilty of insulting a far right Hungarian politician. The verdict was later confirmed by another court, this time in Novi Sad.

During the meeting today, Nikolić stressed that his decision to held set Šaš free was "the beginning of fight for freedom of thought in Serbia as the basic civilization value", the president's press service said.

Nikolić made a decision to pardon Šaš on August 3 based on the Serbian Constitution, which says that the international regulations are supreme in relation to domestic provisions, and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights envisages freedom of expression and thought without any limitations.

Šaš thanked President Nikolić for the pardon and expressed great satisfaction that the entire process from the submittal of the request to release from jail lasted only two days.

Šaš presented the president with a gift - an oil painting, his own artwork.

The 69-year-old journalist was sent to jail after he was found guilty of insulting Hungarian national Laszlo Toroczkai in a text published on April 24, 2007, in the readers' comments section of the Novi Sad-based Hungarian language newspaper Magyar Szo.

Toroczkai is the leader of the extreme Hungarian right-wing organization "64 Counties".

As Šaš was unable to pay the fine of RSD 150,000, he ended up serving a 150-day prison sentence.

The journalist spent 15 days in the Subotica District Prison, northern Serbia, before he was released.