Brankica Stanković (
Serbian Cyrillic: Бранкица Станковић; born October 1975) is a prominent Serbian
investigative journalist reporting on topics of
crime and
political corruption in Serbia. She is the main writer of the investigative television news programme Insajder (Serbian for "Insider") produced by the
B92 television between 2004 and 2015, and by Stanković's own news production company since 2016.
Her reports led to much controversy, and she routinely receives
death threats. For that reason, she has been placed under 24 hours
police protection since December 2009.[1]
Early career
Stanković was born in
Belgrade,
Serbia (then
SFR Yugoslavia) in October 1975.[2] After high school graduation, she enrolled a private
acting school, but quit after two years.[2] She began her career as a journalist for radio and television company
RTV Studio B in 1996, where she spent a year.[2] In 1997, she switched to
Radio B92, where she has been working ever since.[2] During the 1990s, B92 was a prominent pro-
democracynews broadcasting company, opposed to the corrupt regime of then-president
Slobodan Milošević.[3] During her early career, she was the editor of B92 radio news programming, and was a screenwriter for such weekly programs as Jutopija and Apatrija.[2] She also worked as a
foreign correspondent for
Sveriges Radio and German
Westdeutscher Rundfunk.[2]
B92
In 2004,
B92 television launched a program called Insajder (Insider), with Stanković as chief editor. It is an investigative TV program whose aim is to expose
political corruption and
political crime in Serbia. Since 2004, nineteen seasons of Insajder were broadcast, two each year, with each season containing between two and nine episodes, 82 episodes in total (as of October 2013).[4] The first season of Insajder was about the political aspects of the
assassination of Zoran Đinđić.[5] While working on this topic, the Insajder crew found out that after
Milorad Ulemek, Đinđić's assassin, was arrested, he was not taken to the police custody, but to the office of then
Minister of Internal AffairsDragan Jočić. Later episodes investigated such topics as: the Customs Mafia case, high-profile
cigarette smuggling, and secret transfers of state money to
Cyprus.[5] This led to the arrest of former Director of Customs Bureau
Mihalj Kertes.[5] Other episodes investigated corruption in
RB Kolubara, links between politicians and
football hooligans and other
extremist groups, corruption with
privatization of state-owned companies, corruption in
RTB Bor[2] and many other major cases of political corruption and crime.[4]
After reporting on the criminal records of many football hooligan leaders and their links with mafia and politicians in 2009, Stanković received multiple death threats from hooligans.[6][7] The most infamous incident occurred on 16 December 2009 during the
UEFA Europa League football game between
FK Partizan and
FC Shakhtar Donetsk when a group of hooligans supporting FK Partizan stabbed with knives an
inflatable doll representing Stanković. During the incident, hooligans chanted "You're like a serpent, you'll follow
Ćuruvija, Brankica the whore",[5] referring to the death of
Slavko Ćuruvija,[7] another prominent investigative journalist who was assassinated in 1999. Belgrade's
appellate court sentenced three hooligans to
suspended sentences of 10 to 12 months in October 2013 for making death treats to Stanković.[8] Miloš Radosavljević Kimi, the leader of the "Alkatraz" hooligan group was separately sentenced to 16 months in prison in 2010.[9][10]
In 2016, Stanković quit job at B92 in order to launch her own news
production company and investigative
internet portal Insajder.net.[13][14] Her company continued producing the "Insajder" programme for B92 television (renamed "O2 television" in 2017). Insajder.net also produces several other TV programmes ("Insajder debata", "Insajder bez ograničenja") broadcast in
syndication by
N1 television[15] and
TV Prva.[16]