Radovan Karadzic, Sarajevo is not your city, and you have no right to say that it is, just as you do not have the right to say in public, even if it’s in court, that someone has dug up bones around Bosnia and brought them to Srebrenica to make a fake graveyard. This is insulting.
Journalist Assault Case Heads to Court
Tirana | 11 December 2009 |
Taci, a Tirana-based controversial oil magnate, was arrested over the assault of the publisher and detained for several days after Tirana’s appeals court set him free on bail.
He had formerly handed himself over to police on 6 November, after the local district court ordered his arrest following a request from prosecutors.
A businessman with close ties to Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Taci allegedly viciously assaulted Baze on 2 November in Tirana, following a series of reports that accused the businessman of tax evasion.
Taci is known as one of Tirana’s businessman belonging to Prime Minister Berisha's inner circle. His other company, Taci Oil International, has spent millions of euros organising charity football matches, with the proceeds donated to a children's charity headed by Berisha's wife.
Baze ran a series of critical reports on his TV Show, Faktor Plus, on Vizion Plus TV, that accused Rezart Taci and his company, the ARMO oil refinery, of massive tax evasion.
Apart from the TV show, Baze also publishes the Tirana daily Tema, a publication very critical of the government.
The businessman has denied taking part in the attack.
“I totally deny the allegations that I participated in the brutalities that caused severe injuries to Mr. Baze. I not only deny my involvement, but I also condemn violence that so often mars our modern society,” he wrote in a statement.
The attack, which happened in the presence of two other journalists and other witnesses in a Tirana bar, has been condemned by local politicians, diplomats, national and international media organisations.
