Over the past few weeks, the Western Balkan countries have been celebrating investigative journalism. Professional juries across Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo have gathered to evaluate some of the most compelling investigative journalism pieces.
We spoke to all first-prize winners across the region, and will publish the interviews with them in series. Through this series that we have titled “EU Celebrates Investigative Journalism in the Western Balkans” we want to celebrate these exemplary journalists and get to know more about their investigation practices, the urgency of addressing these issues in their country as well as their reflections on the position of investigative journalism in their country and in the region at large.
BIRN’s Aleksa Tešić and Saša Dragojlo shared the first prize for investigative journalism in Serbia. The jury in Serbia — comprising Aleksandra Nikšić, Milka Tadić Mijović, and Snježana Milivojević — awarded Tešić’s investigation Proven: BIA Hacks Activists’ Phones, which informs the public about how Serbia’s Security Information Agency (BIA) used Israeli Cellebrite technology to unlock activists’ phones and install domestic spyware. Dragojlo’s From Belgrade to Be’er Sheva: Israeli Military Flights and Million-Euro Weapons Shipments traced Serbia’s €23 million arms exports to Israel, uncovering deep-rooted ties in military trade and providing valuable context to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Aleksa Tešić
Aleksa Tešić has been a member of the BIRN Serbia investigative team since June 2021, focusing primarily on digital security, privacy rights, and personal data protection. He is the author of multiple investigations into public procurements and the use of surveillance and espionage technologies by state authorities. This year, he received the first-ever NUNS award and the first journalism award presented by the European Union in Serbia. In his work, he frequently relies on automated data analysis, artificial intelligence, and computer vision — in collaboration with programmers and data experts. He graduated in Journalism and Communications from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade in 2019. Before joining BIRN, for more than a year he worked in the advertising industry. During his studies, he interned and worked part-time in television and online media and served as an assistant editor on a TV show. He was born in Čačak in 1996, where he completed primary school and high school.
WeBalkans: What was your process of investigation for the piece “Proven: BIA Hacks Activists’ Phones”. This investigation comes at a time of serious political turmoil in your country. How did this affect your process?
Aleksa Tesić: Back in 2023, I researched and published an analytical investigation on the digital forensics equipment owned by Serbian law enforcement — tools used to extract data from phones and computers. At that time, we didn’t know the equipment was being misused; we could only assume the possibility.
Then, last year, activists slowly began reporting that something strange was happening to their phones after being detained and taken to police stations. That was the turning point. We started contacting everyone who had been questioned by the police because of their activism or journalistic work.
It was challenging to cast a wide net and reach all those people, especially because we aimed to verify as many cases and inspect as many phones as possible. The investigation was successful because we acted quickly — we examined phones shortly after activists were released from “informational interviews,” which was crucial for preserving digital traces and evidence.
WeBalkans: What are your thoughts on the position of journalism at large in the region today, and especially of investigative journalism. In regions like Western Balkans, it seems like the need for independent investigative journalism is even more urgent, whereas pressure towards journalists and investigative journalism is at the same time higher and ever-more present. What are your thoughts on this?
Aleksa Tesic: The position of investigative journalism largely depends on its economic position. It is not profitable, yet it is highly valued in the region, and I believe newsrooms need to rely more on community support. Also, there are never enough investigative journalists—there is a growing need for reporters who are specialized in one (or more) specific field.
In countries where the judiciary is captured and where hybrid authoritarian regimes exist, such as Serbia, investigative journalism becomes a kind of alternative to the work of the prosecution—of course, with significantly fewer resources and no formal authority. It becomes a bastion of truth, holding an essential role in society by bringing forward previously unknown information and enabling citizens to form opinions based on verified facts.
Saša Dragojlo
Saša Dragojlo is an accomplished and award-winning journalist offering years of expertise in political corruption, global arms trade, human trafficking and labor exploitation. He is the recipient of several EU awards for investigative journalism as well as the “Dejan Anastasijević” investigative journalism award. In 2023 he was awarded the prestigious “Dusan Bogavac” award for ethics and courage in journalism. Dragoljo has published articles in Serbian and international media, such as Balkan Investigative Research Network (BIRN), the investigative portal KRIK, Insajder TV, Haaretz, Le Monde Diplomatique, Vice Serbia, weeklies NIN and Vreme, daily Danas, the fact-check portal Istinomer and many others.
WeBalkans: Your investigation for “From Belgrade to Be’er Sheva: Israeli Military Flights and Million-Euro Weapons Shipments”, comes at a very complex time in your country and in the world. What was it like looking at this sensitive topic at such a time for your country, what drew your interest to this angle of the governments’ relation to the Israeli army?
Saša Dragojlo: I am very proud of this story because, at a time when the so-called “most progressive” countries — and even many intellectuals — have remained silent, we did not.
A series of reports we published draws direct links between the supply of ammunition to the Israeli army — which, according to numerous experts and humanitarian organizations including the UN and Amnesty International, has been committing systematic war crimes in Gaza — and Serbia’s arms industry.
My experience in investigating the arms trade and understanding the political context were key to developing this story. When I saw Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement from February 2024, calling Serbia’s authoritarian president Aleksandar Vučić “a true friend of Israel… both in word and deed,” I suspected this had something to do with ammunition supplies. Serbia is known for exporting weapons to numerous conflict zones around the world, so I decided to investigate further. My sources indicated that this was indeed the most likely scenario — especially given the close U.S.–Israel ties and Washington’s strong influence over Serbian arms exports.
When the Serbian government rejected my Freedom of Information request, claiming that details of arms and ammunition exports to Israel were classified, I knew my instincts were correct. I then teamed up with a colleague from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and together we continued to look for evidence. We discovered that all Israeli military flights to Belgrade we tracked coincided with the dates of Serbia’s ammunition shipments. It was also very weird, since Serbia did not export a lot of arms/ammo to Israel before this. The Serbian authorities ignored our findings for more than a year — until President Vučić eventually admitted to them.
Exporting ammunition amid ongoing war crimes, and in defiance of UN experts’ appeals to halt shipments to Israel, is not only immoral and in violation of Serbian law and international standards — it also makes Serbia potentially complicit in future war crimes proceedings.
I am proud that we uncovered this and maintained our professionalism even when it was unpopular among powerful elites, including those in the EU. It is easy to do your job well when it is easy — but when the darkest hour comes, that is when you show who you truly are.
WeBalkans: What are your thoughts on the position of journalism at large in the region today, and especially of investigative journalism. In regions like Western Balkans, it seems like the need for independent investigative journalism is even more urgent, whereas pressure towards journalists and investigative journalism is at the same time higher and ever-more present. What are your thoughts on this?
Saša Dragojlo: The Serbian authoritarian regime maintains near-total control over the country’s mainstream media landscape. Their goal is to prevent our work from reaching a wider audience, confining us, in a sense, to online “ghettos.” For more than a decade, Serbian government officials and the media outlets under their control have been running smear campaigns against us—branding us as traitors, mercenaries, or whatever suits their narrative at the moment. They have turned us into “public enemies” in the eyes of ordinary citizens, so that our investigations into crime and corruption are dismissed as lies before they are even read.
With the ongoing unrest in Serbia, the regime has grown increasingly violent. Journalists have had their homes set on fire; some colleagues have been targeted with Pegasus spyware; and physical attacks by hooligans paid by the ruling party are becoming more frequent. I was personally attacked by one such individual this March—right in front of police officers who did nothing, despite standing just a few meters away. The Serbian prosecution has yet to initiate a case. Sadly, this is just one among hundreds of similar attacks on journalists.
Despite these conditions, investigative journalism in Serbia remains among the best in Europe. But we urgently need support—both financial and physical—to survive. Serbia stands just an inch away from full-blown authoritarianism. If it happens, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Aleksa Tešić
Aleksa Tešić has been a member of the BIRN Serbia investigative team since June 2021, focusing primarily on digital security, privacy rights, and personal data protection. He is the author of multiple investigations into public procurements and the use of surveillance and espionage technologies by state authorities. This year, he received the first-ever NUNS award and the first journalism award presented by the European Union in Serbia. In his work, he frequently relies on automated data analysis, artificial intelligence, and computer vision — in collaboration with programmers and data experts. He graduated in Journalism and Communications from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade in 2019. Before joining BIRN, for more than a year he worked in the advertising industry. During his studies, he interned and worked part-time in television and online media and served as an assistant editor on a TV show. He was born in Čačak in 1996, where he completed primary school and high school.
WeBalkans: What was your process of investigation for the piece “Proven: BIA Hacks Activists’ Phones”. This investigation comes at a time of serious political turmoil in your country. How did this affect your process?
Aleksa Tesić: Back in 2023, I researched and published an analytical investigation on the digital forensics equipment owned by Serbian law enforcement — tools used to extract data from phones and computers. At that time, we didn’t know the equipment was being misused; we could only assume the possibility.
Then, last year, activists slowly began reporting that something strange was happening to their phones after being detained and taken to police stations. That was the turning point. We started contacting everyone who had been questioned by the police because of their activism or journalistic work.
It was challenging to cast a wide net and reach all those people, especially because we aimed to verify as many cases and inspect as many phones as possible. The investigation was successful because we acted quickly — we examined phones shortly after activists were released from “informational interviews,” which was crucial for preserving digital traces and evidence.
WeBalkans: What are your thoughts on the position of journalism at large in the region today, and especially of investigative journalism. In regions like Western Balkans, it seems like the need for independent investigative journalism is even more urgent, whereas pressure towards journalists and investigative journalism is at the same time higher and ever-more present. What are your thoughts on this?
Aleksa Tesic: The position of investigative journalism largely depends on its economic position. It is not profitable, yet it is highly valued in the region, and I believe newsrooms need to rely more on community support. Also, there are never enough investigative journalists—there is a growing need for reporters who are specialized in one (or more) specific field.
In countries where the judiciary is captured and where hybrid authoritarian regimes exist, such as Serbia, investigative journalism becomes a kind of alternative to the work of the prosecution—of course, with significantly fewer resources and no formal authority. It becomes a bastion of truth, holding an essential role in society by bringing forward previously unknown information and enabling citizens to form opinions based on verified facts.
Saša Dragojlo
Saša Dragojlo is an accomplished and award-winning journalist offering years of expertise in political corruption, global arms trade, human trafficking and labor exploitation. He is the recipient of several EU awards for investigative journalism as well as the “Dejan Anastasijević” investigative journalism award. In 2023 he was awarded the prestigious “Dusan Bogavac” award for ethics and courage in journalism. Dragoljo has published articles in Serbian and international media, such as Balkan Investigative Research Network (BIRN), the investigative portal KRIK, Insajder TV, Haaretz, Le Monde Diplomatique, Vice Serbia, weeklies NIN and Vreme, daily Danas, the fact-check portal Istinomer and many others.
WeBalkans: Your investigation for “From Belgrade to Be’er Sheva: Israeli Military Flights and Million-Euro Weapons Shipments”, comes at a very complex time in your country and in the world. What was it like looking at this sensitive topic at such a time for your country, what drew your interest to this angle of the governments’ relation to the Israeli army?
Saša Dragojlo: I am very proud of this story because, at a time when the so-called “most progressive” countries — and even many intellectuals — have remained silent, we did not.
A series of reports we published draws direct links between the supply of ammunition to the Israeli army — which, according to numerous experts and humanitarian organizations including the UN and Amnesty International, has been committing systematic war crimes in Gaza — and Serbia’s arms industry.
My experience in investigating the arms trade and understanding the political context were key to developing this story. When I saw Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement from February 2024, calling Serbia’s authoritarian president Aleksandar Vučić “a true friend of Israel… both in word and deed,” I suspected this had something to do with ammunition supplies. Serbia is known for exporting weapons to numerous conflict zones around the world, so I decided to investigate further. My sources indicated that this was indeed the most likely scenario — especially given the close U.S.–Israel ties and Washington’s strong influence over Serbian arms exports.
When the Serbian government rejected my Freedom of Information request, claiming that details of arms and ammunition exports to Israel were classified, I knew my instincts were correct. I then teamed up with a colleague from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and together we continued to look for evidence. We discovered that all Israeli military flights to Belgrade we tracked coincided with the dates of Serbia’s ammunition shipments. It was also very weird, since Serbia did not export a lot of arms/ammo to Israel before this. The Serbian authorities ignored our findings for more than a year — until President Vučić eventually admitted to them.
Exporting ammunition amid ongoing war crimes, and in defiance of UN experts’ appeals to halt shipments to Israel, is not only immoral and in violation of Serbian law and international standards — it also makes Serbia potentially complicit in future war crimes proceedings.
I am proud that we uncovered this and maintained our professionalism even when it was unpopular among powerful elites, including those in the EU. It is easy to do your job well when it is easy — but when the darkest hour comes, that is when you show who you truly are.
WeBalkans: What are your thoughts on the position of journalism at large in the region today, and especially of investigative journalism. In regions like Western Balkans, it seems like the need for independent investigative journalism is even more urgent, whereas pressure towards journalists and investigative journalism is at the same time higher and ever-more present. What are your thoughts on this?
Saša Dragojlo: The Serbian authoritarian regime maintains near-total control over the country’s mainstream media landscape. Their goal is to prevent our work from reaching a wider audience, confining us, in a sense, to online “ghettos.” For more than a decade, Serbian government officials and the media outlets under their control have been running smear campaigns against us—branding us as traitors, mercenaries, or whatever suits their narrative at the moment. They have turned us into “public enemies” in the eyes of ordinary citizens, so that our investigations into crime and corruption are dismissed as lies before they are even read.
With the ongoing unrest in Serbia, the regime has grown increasingly violent. Journalists have had their homes set on fire; some colleagues have been targeted with Pegasus spyware; and physical attacks by hooligans paid by the ruling party are becoming more frequent. I was personally attacked by one such individual this March—right in front of police officers who did nothing, despite standing just a few meters away. The Serbian prosecution has yet to initiate a case. Sadly, this is just one among hundreds of similar attacks on journalists.
Despite these conditions, investigative journalism in Serbia remains among the best in Europe. But we urgently need support—both financial and physical—to survive. Serbia stands just an inch away from full-blown authoritarianism. If it happens, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
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