Hands cannot be washed from human blood

Slavko Ćuruvija, journalist and owner of "Dnevni Telegraf", was killed with 17 shots from behind, on Easter Sunday, in the entrance of the building where he lived in Svetogorska street in Belgrade. From that April 11, 1999, until the end of the court proceedings and the sentencing of the guilty parties, two decades, several governments and several different governments have passed. Each of them avoided answering the question of who killed Slavko Ćuruvija and why. And that only reinforced the suspicion that the political elite of the time, services that disciplined and obediently worked for his and their own welfare, structures from public political life and structures from the shadows were involved in the whole case. In short, powerful state constructs that can survive anything and for which one human life is beyond their control, no matter whose, nothing but miserable nothingness.

Almost on the 20th anniversary of the murder, the current government proudly pointed out that it had shed light on everything, convicted the culprits and that the case was over. The prosecutor said that the murder was most likely ordered by someone from the government at the time. The court read that the immediate executor is an unknown person. The verdict was handed down to the then head of the Department of State Security, Radomir Marković (age 30), for inciting serious murder; Milan Radonjić (30 years old), head of the Belgrade DB center at the time, Ratko Romić (20 years old), a member of that center, as well as Miroslav Kurak (20 years old), who is on the run, for aggravated murder in complicity.

The conversation with the then wife of Slavko Ćuruvija, the historian Branka Prpa, a direct witness to the murder, begins and ends with the verdict, that is, the fate and comments about one of the many never-completed processes in the case of political murders in Serbia.

"WEATHER": This verdict was awaited for 20 years. It seems to be her most dominant decision and message "one hundred years in prison". Is that proof that justice has been served??

BRANK PRPA: Those "hundred years of solitude" are only partial satisfaction, because there is no answer to the key question. This judgment is only the first step to climb to the top, where the order was made and what was ordered. The people who were convicted worked under orders, but whose? They are the perpetrators, and the judgment only refers to the technical side of the whole story, which is absolutely morbid. Because according to it, as well as according to the previous verdicts for the murders of Ivan Stambolić, for the "Ibarska magistrala", for the murder of Zoran Đinđić, we only have members of the state security service convicted. And then we have the attribution that the state is the killer. But all the time the key and basic question eludes us: who makes up that state apart from members of the state security service? How and under what circumstances do these murders happen, who is the puppet master behind the scenes who controls the strings? Instead, on-call culprits and solutions are found in the style of, to use a pejorative definition, "let Pedro hang". And that is always the state security service, while we have those who give that service orders to kill people as completely innocent.

So it turns out that the state security service has a hobby, which is to kill people in their spare time, outside of their usual jobs. It's a somnabulia we live in and it's rude. Not for a single moment to create a context, a circumstance, and to say what is most normal in court processes and investigations of a serious crime such as premeditated murder - who is behind it? What is the motive of that murder? In this case, we have the most morbid possible epilogue. We have a president of the state who, in his previous position as prime minister, initiated the initiation of a court process, but at no single moment in the investigation that has been going on for 20 years has he been invited to an informative interview because, as the minister of information at the time of the committed crime, he must have had some knowledge, directly or indirectly, of who is the orderer of that murder.

The direct perpetrator of the murder is also unknown. Usually the perpetrators are, as in previous cases, arrested, convicted, known to the public, unlike the principals. Why is this part of the investigation into the murder of Ćuruvija so complicated?

For a very simple reason. Because the prosecutor, based on Legija's testimony, accused Miroslav Kurak, a member of the Service, of being the direct perpetrator. That accusation was in direct conflict with what I, as the only witness, can confirm or not confirm. Therefore, I did not confirm neither in the investigation that lasted for 20 years nor in the court itself that Kurak was the one I saw. And then, in his closing statement, the prosecutor tried to challenge me as a witness, claiming that I have poor eyesight and that I was in shock.

But when someone is standing over you with a gun pointed at your head while you're lying on the ground, then you get a good look at them. I was looking at the killer, and the killer was looking at me. We both looked at each other, I didn't see him from a distance. I saw him directly above me at the moment when he was deciding whether he was going to liquidate me as he had previously liquidated Slavko, next to whom I was lying. Well, the person who shot him was not Kurak. Because Kurak has a characteristic face that I would remember. Precisely because these are borderline human situations, our senses are especially sharpened. It is a terrible shock, but you are facing death and looking at death. Therefore, I was looking at that man who did not have a mask on his face and that man was not Kurak.

That is why pressure was put on me as a witness in an article in "Politica" entitled "Branka Prpa's Third Bullet", which was an absolutely shameless attempt to defame me as a witness. The indictment itself was such that I almost found myself in the situation of overturning the prosecutor's lawsuit. That's why the judge, taking my testimony as relevant, now ruled that the person who shot was not Kurak. But if he did participate in the organization of the murder, on the ground, like the other two, the head of the Belgrade DB Milan Radonjić and the member of the DB Ratko Romić, certainly with the knowledge of the then head of the DB Radomir Marković.

There have been indications from earlier that, according to your claim, the immediate executor could be Luka Pejović, member of the JSO, but the official name of the perpetrator is still unknown, even after the whole procedure.

Luka Pejović is the person I most resembled the person I saw, and he was liquidated in December 2000. At the same time when the series of liquidations was going on, actually when Koštunica kept Rade Marković. Serial liquidations continued, at that time the case of judge Nebojša Simeunović was also known, until January 2001, when Zoran Đinđić took over the government.

So now we have a situation where Luka Pejović was killed, and I am the only witness. And if you do not come to any other knowledge in the investigation that lasted for 20 years, then what the witness says becomes important. I never said that it was 60% him, but I just confirmed that he looks the most like that person to me. And when special prosecutor Prijić from the government of Zoran Đinđić asked me in what percentage I could confirm that, I said XNUMX percent.

In an indirect way, you practically killed the then president of the state Kostunica "connected" with the case of Ćuruvi?

During the transitional government, after October 5, at his insistence, Rade Marković remained. Another thing, when he took power in 2004, he suspended the entire previous investigation and started a new one.

And what was the result of that new investigation?

Of course, nothing. And then in 2007, the investigating judge himself did a big cross-examination of the witnesses, but the whole thing still stood still. In other words, when investigations are fragmented, when you start from something and then eliminate it for political reasons and change people, and when you start your own investigation because you are supposedly more objective or qualified than the previous ones, in the end you get nothing.

On the other hand, looking for the client, everything that could be found out so far, and through analysis and judging by the role and influence in the government, unfortunately and according to various spins, it indicated Slobodan Milošević's wife, then president JUL and Mirjana Marković.

I am a historian by profession and I advocate that one should always look at what preceded something, what was the process that, as in this case, ended up with a murder as its epilogue. At that time, the red-black coalition, JUL and the Serbian Radical Party, were in the Government of Serbia and held some portfolios. Let's recall: Šešelj and Nikolić were vice-presidents of the Government of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić was the Minister of Information, as well as JUL's ministers who were also in the Government. Does that coalition pass the Law on Public Information? It brings. Who is the first victim of that law? Slavko Ćuruvija, in October 1998. First it was "The European", then there were three trials of "Dnevno telegraf", and there was the confiscation of property, a ban on the distribution of the newspaper, in the end it came to the point that according to the lawsuit of Milovan Bojić, who was the JUL minister in that government, Slavko Ćuruvija and two other journalists were sentenced on March 8, 1999 to six months in prison.

Therefore, all the time we have a systematic persecution of one person, whose name is Slavko Ćuruvija. So how come none of them know anything? Well, only when you create such a law on public information, you are, in fact, attacking the media, the idea of ​​independent journalism and freedom of the press. At the same time, the law provided for the confiscation of personal property, and such a law was never passed by tyrannical or democratic authorities in the history of Serbia, never by anyone. But they brought him, after which everyone was somewhat surprised that a man was killed in the end. And what else could be expected? And who is behind it? Red-black coalition, from the beginning.

At the top of the pyramid of that coalition government was Mirjana Marković?

Certainly, because these others, the radicals, did not have the strength to make such decisions. And Slobodan Milošević probably approved all of that.

You mentioned October 1998.; whether the turning point of Ćuruvia's persecution was the text "What's next, Milosevic" published that month in "To a European"?

The persecution with all warnings began earlier. Because that same red-black coalition also committed the history of democracy in Serbia under another law, the Law on Universities. Back in the spring of 1998, the expulsion of professors from the University of Belgrade began, and Ćuruvija therefore devoted another page of the newspaper to those events in "Dnevni Telegraf". And it already started there. And the first conflict, when he was invited to an informative interview, was when the Jashari family was killed in Kosovo, because he used the term "Albanians" and not "terrorists". At the briefing, he stated in writing that the 25 murdered women and children cannot be called terrorists. Only after that is the engagement in his newspaper related to the events at the university, and at the time of the text "What's next, Milošević" there is already a NATO threat of bombing. The "Daily Telegraph" was banned because it announced that there was a threat of bombing, and that was in the fall of 1998. Therefore, those were the reasons why the magistrate accused Ćuruvija in prompt trials, all within 48 hours, with the explanation that he was destroying the state order. Therefore, conflicts are coming up with those who have abolished the mirage of democracy, which is the red-black coalition. They are behind it.

The culmination of the awareness that the threats are terrifyingly serious was caused by the text "Ćuruvija welcomed the bombs" which was published two days before the murder in "Politicians Express" and then on the same day in the evening it was read in the Second Daily of RTS. In the investigation process 2007, the then director "political" Hadži Dragan Antić confirmed that the editor "Express" he commissioned the writing of that text. He did not say who ordered it for him. During the court proceedings, Antić was not available due to illness, and perhaps by the court's insistence on his testimony, even the person who ordered the murder could be revealed?

No one from the government system testified, that's the whole point. That's why we all end up discussing the state security service, which is what the state itself is, that is, what the government is like.

How do you view the closing statement of prosecutor Milenko Mandić, who quoted Tijanić as saying that he was involved in the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija "the whole government was a jury"?

Usually, when you quote or paraphrase someone, it means that you have adopted some of his conclusions or some of his views on things. I will repeat, I am a woman in science and when I quote someone, I quote them as my own argument.

Commission to investigate the murders of journalists, but the President of Serbia Vučić himself reacted differently and more violently. They said the prosecutor didn't think so, but that he only quoted Tijanić and did not accuse anyone from the then government. President Vučić said that the prosecutor was not referring to him, otherwise I would call him "bastard" because he has nothing to do with that murder.

There is. Because if you are part of an institution called the Government of Serbia and you have a systematic persecution of one man based on the law you passed and created, then you have something to do with it. The murder didn't happen by accident, it won't be that no one knew about any prehistory, so everyone was dumbfounded when it happened. There was a systematic pursuit of a man that eventually ended in murder. They have the so-called positional responsibility, and they are the creators of the law on public information. I don't understand how they have nothing to do with it and who is that bastard? Here, I think that the Government of Serbia had to participate in this because no one else had, so let them tell me that I am a scumbag.

Where specifically do you see it?, for example, Vučić's responsibility as Minister of Information at that time? What is he for?, in your opinion, fundamentally guilty?

We keep talking as if it happened in some peacetime conditions. And we had a bloody war and that is the context in which such murders take place. We were at war. These are not peacetime circumstances, so that they are surprised that someone was killed. They know everything about it, about the war and about the battlefields where they themselves were present. And their dose of French maid naivety is really offensive. There is one more thing, and it is crucial. As Minister of Information, the murder of the owner of the newspaper happened to him, a man who is absolutely known to the wider public, including the world public, because in December 1998, Ćuruvija spoke at the Congress in Washington due to the persecution he had previously had here, as well as at the Political Committee of Europe in Paris. This meant that there was already an international context regarding the persecution of journalists in Serbia. Why didn't Vučić resign when Slavko was killed? Why did he not resign as Minister of Information, resignation is a moral act. Why didn't he say: since something is happening here that I am not familiar with, I will not be responsible for it, and resigned. But no, after all that, that law on public information was still in operation until the fall of Milosevic. Remember the other judgments and how the mechanism against journalists, independent, of course, was launched again. And now he says - what? That he doesn't know anything? Well, it won't be.

Did you state that Vučić, as the Minister of Information at the time, called Ćuruvia two days before the murder and gave him some kind of support?

No, he never called Ćuruvia. That evening, after the text from "Politika Ekspres" was read on RTS, Olivera Zekić, who was then a journalist at Ćuruvija, called him to tell him how Vučić had called her to tell Slavka not to worry about anything, that it was a coincidence happened, that it was a mistake and the like. The text in "Express Politica" is a mistake? And that text was read on RTS by mistake? When he finished that conversation with Olja Zekić, I told him: "They want to anesthetize you." They want to kill you, that's clear." It was clear to everyone that that text and its public reading was a threat to murder. Whoever we met on the street at that time, they would tell Slavko the same thing that Žarko Korać told him during one meeting: run away, man, they will kill you! And Ratko Dmitrović, then the owner and editor of the weekly "Argument", at the editor-in-chief's briefing with Vučić, who had the role of chief censor during the state of emergency, was the only one who shouted: "What are you doing?!" Well, after all, I can kill this man lay artis. "

Therefore, whether Vučić directly knew that Ćuruvija was going to be killed, I really don't know, but it is absolutely true that he participated in his persecutions from his position until then.

Did Ćuruvija bother the then authorities more as a journalist or as some new force seen as a future subject in political life?

I think what really bothered them the most was that after Slavko's stay in America, they were afraid that he was a new political figure in the whole area. Slavko was very angry that there was no complete opposition against the law on the university and the law on information. He invited Vuk Drašković and Zoran Đinđić for a conversation, telling them: "Come on, people, they will kill us all, you have to do something." However, Vuk Drašković went to the federal government, and Zoran Đinđić also found himself in a situation where his head was in question. Djindjic and the Democratic Party were pushed to the sidelines and proclaimed as the main enemies of the state. You no longer had a political opposition, it was completely destroyed and broken, it no longer had the strength it had in '96. and '97. year. At that moment, the only remaining independent journalists and university professors were the social force that challenged the government. Something similar to now, and they actually took on a key political role, they were vox populi, they were the ones who problematized anything.

A few days before the sentencing for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, in which the principal still remains unknown, we had another court decision. The Court of Appeal overturned Mirjana Marković's verdict, i.e. the one-year prison sentence, and the trial was brought back to the beginning. Is it just a coincidence??

It is absolutely immoral, and there is no coincidence in politics. Little by little, everyone was rehabilitated under Vučić, and in the end we will commemorate Milošević as well. We live in a situation where we prove obvious things, and when you start to prove obvious things, you are either in the "matrix" or you are in a totalitarian system of the worst kind. The fact that we have been living since the end of the 20th century and, unfortunately, the first two decades of the 21st century is not human. At the same time, everything that happens to us offends our intelligence, offends the most normal human need to get an answer to at least one "why". We didn't get an answer to any "why". To top it off, Zvezdan Jovanović is accused of murdering the Prime Minister of Serbia. So, some idle man comes, he doesn't like the prime minister and he kills him. Zvezdan Jovanović and Legija, what is it? What kind of madness is it when they force us to agree to live in an absolutely diabolical world in which we cease to be mentally, emotionally, intellectually healthy beings?

Here, we have the DB service that passed from Jovica Stanišić through Radet Marković, and to the latter. Who controls that service today, how do we as citizens know that that service works according to the law? Do we know? We don't know. I guess we, as citizens who pay for this service, have the right to know what the institutions of the state are doing, which were created to protect our lives and property, because that is the function of the state. And if that state kills you and demolishes you and confiscates your property, like in Savamala, then we don't have a state, we have a satrapy.

What would be your response to the claims from the authorities that the verdict in the case "Peacock" historical and that it shows the political will to resolve the murder of the journalist to the end?

The actors of the government at that time, who were in charge of verdicts, break-ins and closures of newsrooms, were never brought to an informative interview, nobody asked them anything. And then you have a kind of not even grotesque, but something even worse. This is clean Macbeth. Shall we wash our hands? Well, there is one problem - you can't wash your hands from human blood. Shakespeare writes beautifully in to Macbeth and that's the crux of the matter. This issue will not die, this issue is not over. It cannot be finished in this way. And if the perpetrators are not found, we will have murders of political opponents and journalists in a series, everyone will go through the same thing. That chain has to be broken somewhere.