The murder of Slavko Ćuruvija was preceded by media preparation. Five days before the murder, the daily newspaper Politika Ekspres published an article entitled "Ćuruvija met the bombs", which was then read in the Second Daily of RTS. In that text, Ćuruvija was labeled as a traitor who supports the bombing of Serbia.
Is there ongoing media preparation of the public for the final pre-judgment, which has been waiting for 24 years? Will the persons who were twice found guilty of the murder of the founder and editor of the newspapers "Dnevni telegraf" and "Europljanin" go unpunished?
The president of the Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists and the former owner and editor of Radio-television B92, Veran Matić, states that he received a confirmation of acquittal for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvije from a state secretary.
"I received confirmation of that information from a state secretary, I did not receive confirming information from the court. I ended my communication with the Court of Appeal with two conclusions. The first is that based on the communication, I cannot claim that an acquittal was passed. The second - that based on the communication, I can assume that an acquittal was passed, only that it was not forwarded further", said Matić.
Price on request Voice of America, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade announced that the proceedings before that court in connection with the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija are, as indicated, a non-public part.
This, as indicated in the answer of the spokeswoman Miljana Piljić, is the reason why the Court of Appeals prevents it from being published about it.
"Certainly, as soon as the written decision in the same case is dispatched from the Court, the public will be informed about it. At this stage of the procedure, we can't make a statement or comment on speculations about what the decision is," Piljić pointed out.
Matić states that this could be interpreted as a certain tactic, and therefore a sign that the decision was made under certain influence and pressure.
"If the verdict is acquittal, it can also be said that it represents continuity in the entire obstruction - starting with the investigation of this murder, which did not yield results for 15 years, through the obstruction of the trials in which a verdict of a total of 100 years in prison was handed down twice for the four accused, and at the end of the trial itself, since after this verdict there will be no possibility for any new legal action that would bring a different result when it comes to the accused", Matić points out.
As stated N1, in the days when the final decision of the Appellate Court in the case of the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija is awaited, the tabloids are orchestrating signals that one of the participants of the reality show "Elita", broadcast on TV Pink, who is presented as his relative, will "uncover the truth" about Slavko .
In the aforementioned reality show, the participant introduced herself as Vesna Ćuruvija from Obrenovac, social worker, journalist, presenter, announcer.
The Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation says that they have no confirmation as to whether the swept-up reality show participant is really a relative of Slavko Ćuruvija, but they believe that the whole story is aimed at defaming the murdered journalist ahead of the final verdict.
"It is clear that the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija was organized and carried out by the state, I believe that she is there for damage control, there is talk that the verdict will be acquittal, these are some rumors and it seems to me that she is there to control the damage after I am very sure strong negative reactions from both the domestic and international public, if it is confirmed that such a verdict is passed, it is there to influence public opinion", says Ivana Stevanović, executive director of the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation for N1.
Slavko Ćuruvija was killed in 1999, during the NATO intervention in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the passage of the building where he lived in the center of Belgrade. The trial began in June 2015 – seventeen years after the murder.
So far, two proceedings have been conducted in which former members of the state security, Marković, Radonjić, Kurak and Romić, were found guilty. The first verdict, handed down in 2019, was annulled by the Court of Appeal a year later and ordered a retrial - because among the convicted was an unknown person identified as the immediate perpetrator of the murder.
BG/Voice of America/Danas/N1
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
