TWO JUGOSLAVS ON TRIAL

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27566, 25 January 1955, Page 11

TWO JUGOSLAVS ON TRIAL

Foreign Press Not Admitted

(Rec. 11 p.m.) BELGRADE, January 24. The trial of two former Jugoslav Communist leaders, Milovan Djilas and Vladimir Dedijer, who recently criticised the regime, opened in Belgrade today.

They are charged with spreading hostile and slanderous propaganda against their country. Foreign correspondents were not admitted to the Court.

Immediately the trial opened the Court President, Judge Milivoje Seratlic, said: “Foreign newspapermen have not received entry tickets because of their previous campaign in this case and because we are not convinced that they will truthfully report the trial.” Djilas’s aged mother told reporters she had been refused a ticket for the public gallery although her daughter-in-law had been admitted.

A small crowd gathered round the Court entrance although the news that the trial would be open had not been published in the Jugoslav press. After the accuseds’ interviews appeared abroad last month the Jugoslav Government attacked the foreign press for misreporting an# distorting the situation in Jugoslavia. Djilas, a sallow-faced Montenegran intellectual, arrived at the Court building on foot, wearing a loud check cap, which he used to wear in public before his fall from office a year ago. A compact crowd of about 50 youths waving their fists surrounded him and shouted “traitor.” Many of them then produced entry tickets for admittance to the Court building. Foreign correspondents asked Judge Seratlic before he went into the courtroom whether the contents of the indictment could be made available to the press. The Judge replied: “No, and I have no time to speak to the foreign press.” Asked whether the trial was secret, he said: “No, it is a public trial.”