The Belgrade Court of Appeal in Serbia acquitted Friday four ex-members of the former Republic of Yugoslavia security services of the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija.
Ćuruvija was a journalist and the owner of the first private daily newspaper in Serbia, Dnevni Telegraf. He was shot and killed outside of his apartment on April 11, 1999. This happened just days after he was accused by pro-government media outlets that he was a traitor and responsible for NATO’s attacks on Yugoslavia that occurred in the same year. His murder was alleged by police to have been an assassination planned by former Serbian spy agency chief Radmoir Markovic. Markovic died in 2006.
The four ex-members of the security service were arrested in 2014 by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime. On June 1, 2015, the case began, and the prosecutors presented their case that the accused were part of an organized crime group that had allegedly been given orders from higher in the government structure to kill Ćuruvija.
After a delayed trial, they were convicted in 2019 for their involvement in the murder. Radomir Markovic, the ex-chief of the State Security Service and the head of Belgrade’s intelligence branch Milan Radonjic were each sentenced to 30 years in prison for insigating a grave murder. The two other members, Miroslav Kurak and Ratko Romic were also sentenced to 20 years each for carrying it out.
Following this, the court allowed an appeal to investigate alleged violations of criminal procedure which commenced on March 6, 2023.
On Friday, the court revealed that their decision to acquit was based on unreliable and insufficient evidence to support the allegations brought by the prosecution:
In the absence of direct and indirect evidence that would reliably confirm that the defendants Markovic, Radonjic, Kurak and Romic [are] the perpetrators of this criminal act, [it] finds that the allegations of the accusation have not been proven beyond a doubt.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a statement condemning the Belgrade court’s decision. CPJ group’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, Gulnoza Said, described the decision as a “huge blow to justice and to all those who work tirelessly for decades to end impunity in the killing.”
Established in 1981, CPJ “promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. CPJ protects the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever journalists are under threat.”
According to CPJ research, 2,287 journalists and media workers have been killed, and 2,232 have been imprisoned since 1992. The right to freedom of expression is a human right enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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