21. 08. 2005

ILIC ATTACKS B92 AGAIN

BELGRADE, August 21, 2005 – B92 has managed to obtain an audio recording of an interview given by Velimir Ilic to Kragujevac TV K9 on August 18 in which he again insulted B92 journalists, just hours after an apology to the station was read in the Cabinet. The interview, which the station did not broadcast, allegedly because the tape was destroyed, said that B92 was not working legally and that it was involved in financial misconduct. “Of course, if this ticklish issue is raised in public, then they attack you like dogs. And everyone attacks you and then they are ordered to provoke you and if you now say anything they will accuse you of being a friend of Marko Milosevic, of influencing… What connection do I have with Marko; I’ve never laid eyes on the man. And something else, this boy from Pozarevac, he withdrew his statement ten months ago, not recently, but now that is being abused as well. Another thing, that boy is a close relative of mine. His mother and my late mother were the children of two sisters. And now here was an opportunity, get that Ilic, now we’ll sort him out, we’ll attack him: so there he builds a hundred kilometers of road, he does this, he does that, now we’ll sort him out, we can involve him in some issue and so on…”, said Ilic in the interview. B92 noted that Zoran Milovanovic did not withdraw his allegations that Marko Milosevic threatened him with a chainsaw nine months ago as claimed by Ilic, but one month ago. The minister himself recently claimed to have influenced him to change his statement.