Detektor journalists Irvin Pekmez, Enes Hodzic and Nino Bilajac, as co-authors with the media outlet CU SENS, won second place at the “Superscrieri” journalism awards in Romania in the “TV and Video Journalism” category.
The award from the “Friends for Friends” Foundation was presented on May 27 to CU SENS journalist Malvina Cojocari, who, in cooperation with Detektor and the organisation FactCheck from Bulgaria, showed how people from Moldova were trained in Russia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to use weapons and drones carrying explosive devices for use in mass unrest in Moldova.
“This award represents recognition for the work, responsibility, and passion I invest in journalism. It confirms that the stories I choose to tell reach people and have significance in society. At the same time, this recognition motivates me to continue practicing journalism with the same sincerity and dedication,” Cojocari told Detektor.
The programme “Investigation: Trained to Cause Chaos. Part II” ranks among the best media content published in Moldova during 2025. In addition to the “TV and Video Journalism” category, it was also nominated for the “Investigative Journalism” category.
The collaboration with the Moldovan media organisation CU SENS and Cojocari in 2025 resulted in the publication of two joint investigations, accompanied by TV programmes in summer that year.
One was published on Detektor.ba while another was simultaneously published on the CU SENS website.
The joint investigation revealed that at least eight Moldovan citizens between July and September 2024, were trained in Russian camps in Bosnia on how to use weapons and drones with explosive devices.
The plan was to provoke unrest in Moldova as part of mass disturbances organised by unidentified structures under Kremlin control.
Among the recruiters were people involved in vandalizing certain buildings in Paris in 2023. Some of the instructors and coordinators are linked to the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.
First place was awarded to colleagues from Ziarul de Gardă for the investigative series “The Kremlin’s Digital Army” and to the organisation Recorder for the investigation “The Largest Ghost Company, Confirmed by ANAF.”
Third place in the same category also went to Recorder for the piece “Alone. The Endless Nightmare of Abandoned Children.”
Out of a total of 300 submissions, a jury composed of 22 media experts selected 53 works published during 2025, which were nominated across nine competition categories: Journalism Debut, Local Media, TV and Video Journalism, Investigative Journalism, Feature Writing, Thematic Journalism, Innovation, Interview, and Civic Influencers.
The “Friends for Friends” Foundation is a Romanian nonprofit organisation focused on media work, social impact, education and creativity, which organised the awards in the investigative and TV journalism categories.
Detektor journalist Emina Dizdarevic Tahmiscija has received a 2025 international Fetisov Journalism Award for a series of articles on transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Accepting the award, Tahmiscija said that as the only journalist from Bosnia and Herzegovina — or the Balkans more widely — it was a great honour to attend the event along with finalists from all over the world, and it was a particular honour to win third place.
“This recognition and award are not just personal; they represent the courage of people whose stories we tell and the responsibility we carry as journalists,” she said. “I am grateful to everyone who has supported my work, and I believe this is additional encouragement to continue reporting on topics that contribute to peace and unity.”
Tahmiscija also pointed out that journalism has the power to build understanding, keep the truth at the centre and give a voice to those who need it most, with the hope that such topics will have more and more space in the media.
In her award-winning journalism, Tahmiscija reported that more than 1,100 people have been convicted of war crimes since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina but that victims and families have ultimately ended up disappointed. This is due to prosecutors refusing to file charges against higher-ranking perpetrators, the fragmentation of complex investigations, slow trials, a lack of strategy in their approach, politicisation and a lack of support for witnesses.
In her second award-winning text, Tahmiscija reveals how more than 5.5 million Bosnian marks have been allocated from local budgets in recent years for the construction and maintenance of monuments to civilian and military war victims, bringing the total amount spent on memorialisation to more than 10 million Bosnian marks in the past decade. She questioned how much this and other public spending has truly helped to create a systematic approach to transitional justice processes and to ensure an approach that remains focused on victims and their families.
Both stories are part of Detektor’s series or articles dedicated to transitional justice issues.
The Fetisov Journalism Awards also have categories for Contributions to Civil Rights, Outstanding Investigative Journalism and Excellence in Reporting on Environmental Protection Issues.
This year’s jury consisted of Ricardo Gutierrez, Julianne Schultz, Kaarle Nordenstreng, Milica Pesic, Pravit Rojanaphruk, Tony Sadownichik, Torry Pedersen, Zaffar Abbas and Eva Merkacheva.
The awards promote universal human values such as honour, justice, courage and nobility through examples of outstanding journalists around the world, noting that “their service and dedication contribute to changing the world for the better”.
The category for Outstanding Contribution to Peace rewards a series of texts with anti-war themes that have made an important contribution to peacebuilding and promoting the idea that human life is of the greatest value. According to the Fetisov website, the nominated stories focused on issues of international disarmament, reduction or ending of national or international conflicts, and support for national and international communities that maintain peace.
Tahmiscija has been a journalist at Detektor since 2014. In 2019 she was shortlisted for the Fetisov Journalism Awards for a series of articles on transitional justice processes and the rights of victims of war crimes, as well as their families in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She received the Srdjan Aleksic Award in 2020 in the Nominees Chosen by Journalists category for articles about the challenges facing marginalised groups in Bosnian society. In 2022, she received special recognition from UNICEF for her contribution to the promotion and protection of children’s rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As part of the Detektor team, she also received the European Press Prize Special Award for 2020 for “efforts and success in securing justice for war crimes victims”, for long-term professional and continuous reporting on the most sensitive topics.
In 2022, Detektor journalist Haris Rovcanin received second place in the Fetisov Journalism Awards in the category for Outstanding Contribution to Peace. That was for a series of four articles, two of which were co-authored by Albina Sorguc, who was part of the BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina team at the time.
Detektor journalists Irvin Pekmez, Enes Hodzic, and Nino Bilajac, alongside co-authors from Moldovan outlet CU SENS, have been nominated for a journalism award in Romania in the categories of investigative journalism and TV and video journalism.
Detektor journalists Nino Bilajac, Enes Hodzic, and Irvin Pekmez are co-authors of a broadcast episode with CU SENS, a Moldovan media organisation, about Russian camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Together with two other episodes from CU SENS, they’ve been nominated by the Friends for Friends Foundation – a Romanian non-profit organisation focused on media work, social impact, education, and creativity – for an award in the categories of investigative and TV journalism.
The journalists’ video investigation is being considered as one of the best pieces of media content published in the Republic of Moldova during 2025.
Pekmez explained that cooperation with the Moldovan media organisation CU SENS and the journalist Malvina Cojocari resulted in the publication of two joint investigations accompanied by TV shows in summer 2025. One was published on Detektor.ba, the other was published simultaneously on the CU SENS website.
“We feel particular satisfaction that the Moldovan version of the investigation, supported by the information obtained by Detektor journalists during several months of work on the topic primarily carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, has been recognised as an important journalistic work that contributes to an objective understanding of the problem of the harmful influence of the Kremlin on the two countries,” Pekmez said.
The nominated investigation reveals that between July and September 2024, at least eight Moldovan citizens were trained in Russian camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina on how to use weapons and drones with explosive devices. The plan was to incite unrest in Moldova as part of mass riots organised by unknown structures under Kremlin control.
Among the recruiters were individuals involved in vandalising buildings in Paris in 2023. Some of the instructors and coordinators are connected with the Russian Wagner paramilitary group.
The winners will be announced in Bucharest at the Superscrieri awards ceremony in May, along with other honorary and special awards.
As announced by the Friends for Friends Foundation, out of more than 300 applications, 53 works published during 2025 have been selected by a jury composed of 22 media experts across nine competition categories: journalism debut, local media, TV and video journalism, investigative journalism, feature writing, thematic journalism, innovation, interview, and civic influencers.
From studying international politics to joining BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH) in 2014 and her current position of Head of Programmes – and playing basketball to relax – these are some of the moments from Katarina Zrinjski’s everyday life. Let’s meet her!
One reason why Katarina enrolled at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade was because she didn’t know then what she wanted to do for a living.
“I studied international politics, which gave me a broad education in several fields related to social sciences. That suited me perfectly while I was figuring out what I wanted to become,” she says.
“Just before joining the MA program in Peace Studies, I realised that transitional justice was the field I wanted to explore further. Peace Studies definitely showed me the direction I wanted my career to take,” Katarina adds.
After completing her studies, she worked at the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Belgrade for almost three years before joining BIRN BiH.
“My position was in outreach for HLC, as well as coordinating the REKOM process. That was actually my first contact with BIRN BiH, as we were receiving press clippings related to transitional justice topics from the former Yugoslavia — and the majority of articles from BiH were BIRN BiH court reports,” she recalls.
“Just a few months after I left HLC, I got a call from the former BIRN BiH director asking if I would be interested in joining the team. Within two weeks, I moved to Sarajevo.”
But when she started to work at BIRN as a Project Officer in 2014, she didn’t know what to expect. Her relocation to a new country, city and job happened in less than two week – a challenge in every sense.
“I was excited about everything: exploring a new environment and taking on new tasks one by one. Very quickly, my role became more like that of a project manager than a project officer, as I was responsible for the whole project portfolios,” she recalls.
“When I joined BIRN BiH, transitional justice was the main and only field we worked on. Within the next year-and-a-half, we were already covering topics such as corruption, terrorism and the rule of law. It felt like BIRN BiH’s growth was mirroring my own, and I loved that process. It set standards from the very beginning – that we, as an organisation and I as an individual, must always strive for more. That’s still the case today,” Katarina explains.
Her professional path led her to the Head of Programmes position. Since this is a new role, which no one held before, Katarina created the Terms of Reference for the position herself.
“The idea was to have one person responsible for planning and overseeing all projects, ensuring they align with the organisation’s strategic goals. Personally, I want to make things a bit easier for the editorial, finance, and executive leadership teams by assisting them however I can. We’ll see how this role develops, but I know I’m 100-per-cent ready for new challenges, and I’m truly grateful for this opportunity,” she says.
BIRN BiH has three main programmes that have evolved over the years: transitional justice, rule of law and foreign influence. Transitional justice, Katarina’s favourite, has remained BIRN BiH’s core focus.
“We are still the only organisation reporting on every war-crime trial related to BiH, which makes our archive invaluable,” she notes.
The second programme, which is becoming increasingly relevant, is on foreign malign influence in BiH. “We’ve produced several investigations that have had a major public impact and prompted reactions from institutions,” she says.
“For example, our journalists uncovered ways of recruitment in the Russian army and revealed that two Russian diplomats, expelled from European countries after the invasion of Ukraine, were accredited in Russia’s diplomatic mission in BiH — a story that drew international attention,” Zrinjski notes.
When it comes to the rule of law, BIRN BiH’s reports have prompted dozens of investigations by prosecutors’ offices and even verdicts in serious crime cases.
“We’re also the only organisation reporting on disciplinary proceedings against members of the judiciary. Recently, after a tragic tram accident in Sarajevo that claimed one life, we discovered that the tender documentation for tram maintenance didn’t require relevant experience – an example of how our journalists uncover systemic issues,” she says.
“I can confidently say BIRN BiH has become a respected organisation, both domestically and internationally, and is now a key player in monitoring and reporting on Bosnia’s most important social and political issues,” Katarina adds.
If she had to explain what BIRN BiH represents to someone unfamiliar with it, she would summarize it in its mission statement: “In our relentless pursuit of truth and justice, we stand as guardians of democracy, ensuring that the voices of the voiceless are heard and that the lessons of history are never forgotten.”
Katarina and Denis Dzidic, a BIRN BiH Director
“This reflects the core drive behind our work. Although it’s often emotionally challenging and demanding, the satisfaction we feel when we see the impact of our work is priceless,” she says.
“Our greatest strength, besides the amazing professionals at BIRN BiH, is the trust we’ve earned from many different groups – from victims and their families to partner NGOs, fellow journalists, the international community, and even public institutions that see us as a trustworthy partner in our shared mission to improve life in BiH,” Katarina thinks.
However, she believes that there is still room for improvement.
“My mantra is that we can always do better. No matter how good we are, if we relax, we create space for mistakes. That’s why we constantly work to improve, to grow, and to find new ways to present our work. It’s a joint effort by many people at BIRN BiH, and I do my best to make these processes as smooth as possible,” Katarina says.
Some things make her most proud, such as how BIRN BiH continues to touch people with their stories, by motivating them to speak up, share, and trying to make a difference.
“I’m also incredibly proud of how important BIRN BiH has become. I truly believe that if we stopped working tomorrow, the impact on Bosnian society would be profound. It might not be visible immediately, but in the long run, our critical and constructive presence would be deeply missed,” Katarina reflects.
For all young people who would like to work at BIRN, she has one piece of advice: “Be prepared to work hard.”
In her personal life, she thinks she’s the same person privately as she is at work – with the same ambition and dedication to the people and things she loves.
“Nothing compares to spending time with my family; that’s when I’m most relaxed and happy. When I need to clear my head, I grab a basketball and shoot hoops at a nearby court,” she concludes.
Nino Bilajac, a journalist at BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been nominated alongside his colleague Tomas Madlenak for this year’s Slovak Journalistic Award in the ‘written investigative journalism’ category.
Bilajac and Madlenak were nominated for a series of pieces about Slovak policemen and the head of the country’s counterintelligence service who have taken refuge from legal proceedings in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Madlenak, a journalist with the Investigative Center Jan Kuciak, ICJK, was also nominated for another investigative piece in the same category.
In a joint investigation by BIRN Bosnia and ICJK that was published last year, Bilajac and Madlenak discovered that two officials involved in an internal struggle within the Slovak police are now living in exile in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They also established why the men have not been extradited back to Slovakia.
In an investigative piece published in February, Bilajac and Madlenak, along jointly with BIRN Bosnia journalist Enes Hodzic, found out that former Slovak counterintelligence head Peter Gasparovic, who was convicted of corruption and served two-thirds of his sentence, requested asylum in Bosnia and Herzegovina while on conditional release, which protected him from potential extradition.
Bilajac said the two investigative pieces involved a lot of effort, energy, time and stress.
“During our work, we were turned down by domestic institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as if nobody was particularly interested in how high-ranking security officials from Slovakia had escaped from justice and were hiding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Or it was just their defence mechanism due to an omission allowing three corruption convicts to come and stay in our country in a very short period of time,” he said.
Bilajac explained that, with the help of their fellow journalists from Slovakia, they talked to lawyers, politicians, sociologists and prosecutors.
Madlenak said the nomination was particularly important because it was a joint project.
“Before being killed [in 2018], [Slovak journalist] Jan Kuciak was someone who was advocating for cooperation between journalists, especially investigative ones. To me, this nomination confirms that cooperation between journalists is working, we can genuinely be colleagues, not just competitors, even if we come from different media outlets,” he said.
He also said that such cooperation was important “considering events in our country and internationally with non-democratic regimes and movements being on the rise”.
“I think it is time to suppress our desire for exclusive news and our own ego and start working together. Investigative journalism is under unprecedented pressure and if we want to persevere, we must work together,” he said.
BIRN’s unique new database includes court verdicts handed down in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia for domestic terrorism and for going abroad to fight in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
The Terrorism and Foreign Fighters Database, which was launched on Friday by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, contains comprehensive information about court verdicts for domestic terrorism in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
It also includes verdicts from the trials of people accused of going abroad to fight for the so-called Islamic State and other militant groups in Syria and for pro-Russian separatist forces in the conflict in Ukraine.
The database utilises BIRN’s extensive experience of covering terrorism trials in the Western Balkans and includes photographs and videos as well as a resource centre that offers video explainers and PDF booklets on how to report on violent extremism and terrorism.
BIRN’s regional director Marija Ristic said the database is the result of the BIRN network’s long-term reporting efforts and knowledge.
“We wanted to make a relevant source of data about regional terrorism for journalists and researchers, but also for all those interested in the topic. In addition to the data, which has been checked, we also wanted to share BIRN’s knowledge and experience in reporting on these topics,” Ristic said.
The verdicts in the database cover the period from 2007 to the end of 2020.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has convicted the highest number of people in the region for domestic terrorism, a total of 14. North Macedonia has convicted the second-largest amount, finding 11 terrorism defendants guilty.
Bosnia has also has convicted the highest number of people in the region for going to fight in Syria, a total of 28. North Macedonia has convicted 18 individuals and Albania has found nine guilty.
Serbia has prosecuted the highest number of people for going to fight in Ukraine. Serbian courts convicted 16 people but all the trials ended in plea bargains and suspended sentences.
BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina’s director Denis Dzidic said that the database contains data about the duration of sentences, the text of court judgments and data about the criminal records of terrorism defendants.
“It is important to emphasise that the database is free and accessible to everyone. It is searchable. We have made a special effort to link the important information, such as previous convictions or other ties between individuals who have stood trial,” Dzidic said.
The database’s resource centre includes videos and a detailed webinar about professional journalistic coverage of terrorism, along with BIRN’s suggestions for external resources that could help improve media reporting.
NOTE: The database was created with financial support from the European Union and Hedayah, the Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism. It can be accessed here.
