Serbia's judges, prosecutors: Reasonable doubt missing in Fin Ministry's probe

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The Association of public prosecutors, their deputies, the Society of Serbia's Judges and the Centre for Judicial Research said on Thursday they generally support the respective state institutions' activities in preventing money laundering and financing terrorism but warned "it is unclear why the Finance Ministry's Department for Preventing Money Laundering did not provide reasonable doubts" in its demand to the banks asking for data of the accounts of 37 associations and organisations and 20 individuals.

 „Since the list includes the media, organisations and prominent individuals known for working on the improvement of the rule of law and discovering the corruption cases,“ they said in a statement.

It added that: „And since the Department did not specify the reasons for that extraordinary checking, the question is whether it’s a real state’s commitment to fighting money laundering cases or it’s an act against individuals and organisations because of their critical opinion and detection of the negative phenomenon in the society.“

The Finance Ministry’s announcementcaused many protests and demands for additional explanation, from the European Commission, an MEP, European Union Delegation in Serbia, Amnesty International, local NGOs, journalists, and their associations…