Jelena 'to visit Damir after Wimbledon'

Jelena 'to visit Damir after Wimbledon'

Australian tennis star Jelena Dokic plans to visit her estranged father in prison
after she plays at Wimbledon, a family friend says.

The news came on Friday as Damir Dokic announced plans to appeal against his
15-month prison sentence, handed down in a Serbian court for threatening to kill the
Australian ambassador to Belgrade.
Dokic family friend Dusan Grujic, president of exclusive Belgrade tennis club the
Partizan, said the family would reunite once 26-year-old Jelena had played at the
All England Club tournament starting later this month.
Damir, 50, was sentenced on Thursday after a trial behind closed doors in the
northern Serbia town of Ruma.
He was found guilty of making telephone threats to kill Clare Birgin with a grenade
launcher and for having a cache of illegal weapons.
Damir's lawyer Bosiljka Djukic announced plans to appeal against the sentence "not
only in Serbian, but in international courts".
"Mr Dokic has accepted the verdict extremely badly," she said.
Jelena was widely reported in Serbian newspaper and television reports to have
arrived in Belgrade on Thursday to support her father at his trial.
In fact, she stayed in Paris recovering from a back injury that forced her out of
the French Open.
"She prepares herself for Wimbledon and she will arrive to visit her father after
that," Grujic said.
"It is obvious that after all that happened the Dokic family wants to reunite."
Grujic has been in Ruma with Jelena's 19-year-old brother Savo Dokic.
The 15-month sentence was far less than the maximum penalty of five to eight years
Damir could have received.
He was ordered to spend 10 months behind bars after being found guilty of
threatening to take another person's life and another seven months for illegally
possessing firearms found at his home in Vrdnik.
He was given a two-month reduction in his total sentence because of the time he had
spent in custody since his arrest in early May.
Damir made the threats against Birgin in a phone call to the Australian embassy in
Belgrade while enraged over an interview Jelena gave to an Australian magazine
indicating he had physically assaulted her when she was growing up.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith on Friday rejected claims by Dokic's lawyer
Djukic that his client was refused Australian consular assistance before and during
his trial.
Mr Smith said it was Dokic who'd initially refused the assistance, but that consular
officials ensured he was given legal representation.
"That criticism had no basis," Mr Smith said.
"Initially the consular assistance offer was not taken up but I'm advised that
members of his family have asked for consular assistance and that has been taken up.
We helped ensure he was legally represented."
Jelena Dokic is due to play at a WTA grasscourt tournament at Eastbourne on Saturday.