Murder of journalists: It is still not known who ordered it

On Monday, April 11, journalists and admirers of Slavko Ćuruvije will light candles in Svetogorska Street in Belgrade, at the place where he was killed on Easter 1999 with 17 shots in the back.

The Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) and the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), which invited their members to pay tribute to the murdered editor and publisher of Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin, hope that the Court of Appeal will confirm the first-instance verdict and that the marathon court process will be initiated murder of Ćuruvija, be ended.

The case has been in the Appellate Court since last month, which, according to the media, is awaiting the statement of the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime, so that a public hearing can be scheduled.

UNS and NUNS believe that the confirmation of the first-instance verdict and its pronouncement would mark the symbolic end of impunity for the crimes committed against Serbian journalists.

In December of last year, four members of the State Security (DB) were sentenced for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija before the Special Court: The verdict was handed down to the then head of the State Security Department, Radomir Marković (30 years old), for inciting serious murder; Milan Radonjić (30), a member of that center, Ratko Romić (20), as well as Miroslav Kurak (20), who is on the run, for aggravated murder in complicity. An unknown person was named as the direct perpetrator of the assassination of Ćuruvija.

This practically repeated the judgment of the same court from April 2019, although it was annulled due to the introduction of an unknown person.

Branka Prpa, historian and wife of Slavko Ćuruvije, who was a witness to his murder, warns all the time that this court process is a farce, because neither in the investigations nor in the lawsuits was there any mention of the client. This attitude towards the murder of Ćuruvija supports the suspicion that the political elite at the time was involved in the whole case.

The prosecutor said that the murder was most likely ordered by someone from the then government.

Prpa considers the answer to the question of who gave the order for the murder to be fundamentally important for the future of this country and the journalistic profession. As an eyewitness, she claims from the beginning of the trial that she does not recognize any of the defendants as the man who shot Ćuruvija.

S.Ć. /FoNet

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