Published on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 13:06
Tennis player Novak Đoković will be awarded the Order of the Star of Karađorđe First Class, for outstanding merits in representing the Republic of Serbia. This decoration will be presented to the world No. 1 by Serbian President Boris Tadić as the country celebrates February 15, Statehood Day.
The Serbian president's office confirmed for Tanjug late on Monday that Đoković would be presented with the medal.
The office said that the names of persons to be awarded medals and decorations on the occasion of Serbian Statehood Day would be officially announced on Tuesday.
The Order of the Star of Karađorđe First Class is now being awarded for the first time since it was reintroduced in 2010.
The list of recipients of various degrees of other Statehood Day decorations includes the Serb Medical Society, the Action Team for Location of Hague Fugitives, theater expert Jovan Ćirilov, director Dejan Mijač, and posthumously Srđan Aleksić, a Serb from Bosnia, who died in 1993 protecting a Bosniak who came under attack.
Other recipients are St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Sergeyevich Poltavchenko, Serbian intelligence agency BIA, as well as Austrian Diana Odexer-Budisavljević, who during WW2 acted to save some 12,000 Serb children from certain death in the Croat Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac.
Police officer Slobodan Cvetić, Aleksandar Rkman and Siniša Hrnjez, who lost their lives in the line of duty, were all decorated posthumously.
President Tadić also recognized the achievements of a number of officers from the Belgrade Unit of the MUP Gendarmerie, the MUP Emergency Sector and the Serbian Amy, as well as those of miners from Kolubara coal mines, who worked to maintain coal production vital for the country's electrical system during the state of emergency.
Source B92