Cars of Montenegro's Vijesti Set on Fire

Vijesti said unknown persons had poured gas on vehicles owned by the newspaper and then set them on fire.

The cars, bearing the Vijesti logo, had been parked across from the headquarters of the Montenegrin intelligence agency.

An inquiry into the incident is underway.

Police questioned an eyewitness on Thursday who said the vehicles were set on fire by a young man who poured gasoline on the cars, threw a spark towards them and then went towards a nearby building, carrying a white plastic bag.

Mihailo Jovovic, editor of the independent daily, said he hoped the police would find out who set the vehicles on fire and why. Given the police track record in resolving cases of attacks on Vijesti journalists, his hopes may be in vain.

"There is always a suspicion that such attacks are organized and ordered by some government structures and criminal circles close to them, to intimidate us and thus influence our editorial policy," Jovovic said.

Vijesti is one of the two biggest Montenegrin newspapers and it regularly reports on the problems in society and its leaders.

In the past five years, the daily has been attacked by various assailants at least once a year. Some independent analysts claims the attacks on Vijesti are instigated by people at the top of the government. Officials deny this.

The first attack occured in September 2007 after staff at the daily had celebrated the paper's tenth anniversary in a restaurant in Podgorica. Zeljko Ivanovic, director of the newspaper, was beaten.

Police arrested two men afterwards but the motives for the attack were never made clear.

The next victims were Mihailo Jovovic, the paper's editor in chief, and photographer Boris Pejovic. They were attacked by Podgorica's mayor, Miomir Mugosa, his son, Miljan Mugosa, while working on a story about the mayor's car being parked illegally in front of a cafe.

It was only several months ago that the Public Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica filed charges against the two perpetrators.

In September 2010, several editors and directors of Vijesti said they had received threatening letters.

After a series of articles on tobacco factory in the northern Montenegrin town of Mojkovac in February 2011, Oliver Lakic, a reporter from Vijesti, said he received threats over the telephone. The hearing in the case is scheduled for July 21.