23. 01. 2015

Amended indictment for murder of Slavko Curuvija

After the amended investigation was carried out on a warrant issued by the court, the Prosecutor's Office pressed charges against then DB head Radomir Markovic, head of DB Belgrade Centre Milan Radonjic, chief intelligence inspector Ratko Romic of the DB Second Administration and member of the DB reserve staff Milan Kurak.

The indictment charges the defendants with the murder of journalist and owner of Dnevni telegraf and Evropljanin papers Slavko Curuvija for base motives on April 11, 1999, whereby the indictees committed a criminal act of aggravated murder which entails a prison sentence of 30 to 40 years.

Markovic is charged with incitement to crime while the other defendants are charged with complicity in the crime, Radisavljevic specified and added that investigative activities have been conducted in the course of the amended investigation as requested by the court.

He noted that the indictment filed to the Special Department of the Belgrade High Court and that its revision is underway.

The Special Court in Belgrade returned the indictment filed on June 6 for amended investigation on July 24, 2014.

The court will revise the amended indictment and should it be confirmed, the defendants and their legal teams will have the right to appeal the decision to the Belgrade Court of Appeal.

After the indictment becomes valid, the court will schedule a trial and a preparatory hearing, after which the main hearing will be called.

Radonjic and Romic were remanded in custody on Friday upon the decision of the Court of Appeal, Markovic is serving a sentence of 40 years in Pozarevac and Kurak is at large and wanted on an international arrest warrant.

Curuvija was murdered on Easter on April 11, 1999 during the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia.

The murder took place in the yard in front of the entrance to the building housing the marketing office of daily Dnevni telegraf, reads the indictment.

The key witness in this case is former DB member and commander of the Special Operations Unit Milorad Ulemek, whose statement was followed by the arrest of the accused on January 13, 2014.

Ulemek gave a detailed testimony about the murder on his own initiative and unconditionally on January 8, 2014.

At the time of Curuvija's murder, the ruling coalition in Serbia comprised the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Yugoslav Left (JUL) and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

Radomir Markovic was arrested in February 2001. He got a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison for the murder of Ivan Stambolic on August 25, 2000 and four members of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) in an attempted assassination of SPO leader Vuk Draskovic on the Ibar highway on October 3, 1999.

Radonjic and Romic are standing trial before the Belgrade High Court for helping the attempted assassination of Draskovic in Budva in 2000.

The first-instance sentence of eight and seven years in jail was reversed and the retrial is ongoing.