Case Summary and Outcome

The Appeals Court in Belgrade, Serbia, overturned a lower court decision after a retrial acquitting four ex-members of the Serbian State Security services of the murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija. Fifteen years after the murder and after political change in the country, the Prosecution brought charges against the four accused and a trial was held, hearing testimony from over 100 witnesses. The High Court held that Curuvija had been labeled as an “enemy of the State,” that data collected from mobile phone towers placed three of the accused in close proximity to Curuvija at the time of the killing, and that the killers, in cooperation with an unidentified person, were acting on orders from the highest echelons of the Serbian government. On appeal, the Appeals Court found that no evidence of an unidentified person to have murdered Curuvija was presented during the trial and therefore the conviction was flawed. The case was sent back to the High Court for reconsideration. In the retrial, the High Court rendered almost the identical judgment as its first ruling, which was again appealed both by the Prosecution and the Defendants. The Appeals Court again found that the lower judgment was in violation of procedural rules, that no elaboration on an unidentified person was presented and that there was no evidence of the accused’s involvement. The Appeals Court therefore acquitted the accused on all charges.

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Facts

On April 11, 1999, shortly after returning from a trip to the United States, Serbian journalist Slavko Curuvija was shot in the back 14 times in front of his house in Belgrade, Serbia. Curuvija was the publisher of the daily newspaper Dnevni Telegraf and the magazine Evropljanin and was one of the most prominent and influential critics of then-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime. 

It was widely believed that his anti-government speeches and writing led to his murder. 

In March 1998, while running a story about the conflict in Kosovo, Dnevni Telegraf had published a front-page photo of the massacre of the Kosovo-Albanian family Jashari – a topic that was unthinkable to discuss publicly at that time. As a result, Curuvija was summoned by the police to discuss the publication of the photo. 

In October 1998, the Serbian government had passed a draconian information law, introduced by then-Minister of Information, Aleksandar Vucic (later the president of Serbia) to curb critical reporting in anticipation of NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo. The law enabled authorities to identify media outlets allegedly undermining the State, which, with other provisions, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) stated were in contravention of numerous international conventions. Soon after, under this law, the editorial office of Dnevni Telegraf was sealed by the police, on the grounds that the newspaper openly disputed government policies. In order to continue publishing, Curuvija registered the newspaper in neighboring Montenegro and moved his operations there, but the police were able to seize most of the copies destined for Serbia at the border, and only a small percentage made their way through. In that period, under the same law, Dnevni Telegraf was the subject of two more lawsuits, and a private one, brought by then-Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Milan Bojic.

Around this time, Evropljanin featured Slobodan Milosevic on the cover with the question “What’s next, Milosevic?” and an article titled “Letter to the President” where Curuvija accused the president of systematically degrading the church, judiciary, parliament and government. The magazine was sued and convicted by a court of “undermining the constitutional order” and Curuvija was given 24 hours to pay heavy fines related to his conviction. After he was unable to pay, the police surrounded his house and began confiscating his property.

On March 24, 1999, at the beginning of the NATO bombing campaign of Serbia, Curuvija ceased publication of Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin.

On April 6, 1999, during prime-time, the state television broadcaster read out an editorial which was to be published the next day by Politika Express, a daily newspaper aligned with the government. The editorial alleged that Curuvija bore some responsibility for the bombing of the country and quoted Mira Markovic, Slobodan Milosevic’s wife and president of her own political party in Serbia, as saying that “the betrayal had reached its highest point” and that an owner of a Belgrade daily had told her that he “supported the United States in their desire to bomb Serbia” and that the bombing “would teach Serbs a lesson”. The editorial revealed the identity of the media owner as Curuvija, adding that through his newspaper, Dnevni Telegraf, he did everything he could to explain to the “democratic West” and “misguided Serbs” how to course-correct since the future “belongs to the West.” The following day, the editorial was cited several times on different television programs. 

Four days after the editorial was published, Curuvija was assassinated. Branka Prpa, his partner at that time, was with him and she sustained a head injury after being knocked unconscious by a pistol. It is believed that she was the only eyewitness to the murder.

In 2001, after democratic changes in Serbia, there was hope that the new government would work towards resolving cases of murdered journalists, including Curuvija. However, in 2003, Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the driving force behind the changes, was assassinated and the investigations slowed considerably.

In 2014, the Public Prosecutor announced that it had testimony about the identities of Curuvija’s killers from Milorad Ulemek (AKA “Legija”), a former commander of the Special Police Forces, who was imprisoned for being implicated in the assassination of prime minister Djindjic.

This led to a series of trials against those responsible for Curuvija’s murder.

In 2015, the Higher Court in Belgrade, Special Court for Organized Crime in Belgrade heard the case brought by the prosecution against four members of the State Security Service – Radomir Markovic, Ratko Romic, Milan Radonjic and Miroslav Kurak – for organizing and implementing the killing of Curuvija. The prosecution used Ulemek’s testimony that Markovic, at that time the head of the State Security Agency, tried to commission Ulemek to kill Curuvija, and later told him the identities of the perpetrators, as well as that Kurak, a lower-level operative, was the killer. In the course of the trial, over 90 main hearings were held and the Court heard testimony from over 100 witnesses. All four accused pleaded not guilty.

On April 5, 2019, after four years of deliberation, Judge Snezana Jovanovic delivered the decision of the three-judge bench.

The accused argued that the trial was illegitimate and largely a media ploy to put Serbia in a better position with the European Union. Markovic argued that Curuvija was not the only journalist who was writing against the regime and so there was no reason to single him out to be killed. He also stated that it was “illogical to believe” that the government was behind the killing, given the fact that the State had already taken away from Curuvija “all means for work, his newspapers, printing press, so he was no longer functioning, he was not politically active, he did not belong to a single political party, which leads to the conclusion that he could no longer jeopardize anyone”. [p. 13] Markovic submitted that the only reason the trial took place was because the media published articles that Serbia’s ascension to the European Union would be delayed unless the murder of Curuvija was resolved. [p. 14] Radonjic submitted that he had ordered secret surveillance of Curuvija in response to allegations that Curuvija was expected to receive money from “a foreign institution” [p. 28] and that he had learned that Curuvija had already been under surveillance since 1998 “together with a greater number of journalists” for his “reporting about [the conflict in] Kosovo.” [p. 37] He added that “the only motive for this trial [was] for the public to get an impression of the Secret Service as a criminal organization, which is an utter fabrication.” [p. 34] 

Lawyer Zora Dobricanin-Nikodijevic represented Radonjic and Romic and said that neither the Prosecution nor government bodies “have presented an objective interpretation of the evidence” [p. 44] and that for the last fifteen years, “the media has prepared the ground for the claim that the Secret Service is the one responsible for Curuvija’s murder.” [p. 49] Similarly, Kurak’s lawyer stated that the Prosecution’s final words “serve only to be published in the media, and nothing else.” [p. 50] One lawyer for the accused also disputed the communications data from the cell towers in the center of Belgrade, one of the most important pieces of evidence, which “placed” the Defendants at the scene of the murder. The lawyer questioned their authenticity by pointing out that it was dubious that the listings were kept for so long during the war, that by law they were not allowed to be kept for more than a year, and that it was illegal for Telekom to keep the data of another operator (Mobtel).

The Court explored potential motives for the crime and established, based on the evidence presented, that Curuvija had been a person of interest to the secret service since 1994, and that since 1998, his phone conversations had been monitored. [p. 74] It observed that he was a sharp critic of the politicians in power and that he spoke out against them publicly both domestically and abroad, which had led to his newspapers being officially banned. [p. 79] It also described Dnevni Telegraf as “the key independent media” which represented “democratic opposition in the Serbian society,” and that at the time of his murder, Curuvija was one of the organizers of public debates titled “Staying Silent is Not Serbian Way.” [p. 81]

The Court made particular mention of a statement by journalist Dragan Kojadinovic which it found to be credible. Kojadinovic had explained that the Information Law was perceived by some members of the press to be a type of “Court Martial” as it called for immediate adjudication of any offenses, any penalty to be paid within 24 hours, and all orders to be implemented within 48 hours, and that Curuvija was the first person convicted under it. [p. 79] The Court found that such treatment was “undemocratic” and indicative of the fact that the “political regime which was holding the power in Serbia at that time” was running out of options, and that it was “ready for the most repressive measures.” [p. 80] The Court was also persuaded by the testimony of Curuvija’s daughter, Jelena Curuvija-Djurica who said that the only confrontation that her father had had was with Mira Markovic, after he told her that because of what they were doing, she and her husband (Slobodan Milosevic) would end up hanged on the main square. [p. 81] The Court also found the testimony of Djordje Martic to be credible. Martic confirmed that he was the editor of the article “Curuvija welcomes bombs” which was written after he saw a text by Mira Markovic in which she said that she had a private conversation with Curuvija who told her that “Serbia has to be bombed” and that was the reason why he wrote the article. [p. 82]

The Court examined evidence linking the accused to the crime. Detailed evidence had been presented showing that Curuvija’s movements and phone conversations were carefully monitored by the State Security Service and that the accused were aware of that. In addition, the Prosecution presented data collected from the mobile phone towers showing the movement of the accused which placed Romic, Radonjic and Kurak in close proximity to Curuvija at the time of the killing. The Prosecution argued that the orders came from the highest echelons of the Serbian government, and the accused acted in a manner of an organized criminal group with a mandate to kill. Ulemek, in his witness testimony accepted by the Court, stated that in late March 1999, he met with Markovic who told him that “a certain person needs to be liquidated ” and asked him if he could do it. [p. 83] During the trial, the Prosecution argued that the shooter was Kurak, in accordance with Ulemek’s statement. It submitted that, although Prpa (the eyewitness to the crime) had maintained that Kurak was not the man she saw, her testimony was unreliable as she was traumatized by the event. [p. 118] The accused had contested this argument and the Court concluded that there was another accomplice and that the killer was an “unknown person”.

The Court recognized that Curuvija , due to his media and public work, had been charged with and convicted of crimes under the media law of that time and that media close to the regime portrayed him as a person who was “against the government” and evidence confirmed that the Secret Service labeled him an “enemy of the State.” [p. 125] The Court posited that, considering the tensions surrounding the NATO bombing of the country, top government officials could have felt sufficiently threatened to direct Markovic to liquidate Curuvija. [p. 125] 

Accordingly, based on the witness testimony, the Court held that Markovic had directed Radonjic to mobilize Romic, Kurak and an “Unknown Person” to carry out the killing. After examining the written documentation, the mobile towers data and hearing witnesses, the Court concluded that it was Radonjic who gave the final orders to his subordinates; on the day and approximate time of the murder, he was receiving notifications about Curuvija’s precise location and on that date and time Kurak and Romic had rapid, frequent phone communication, in the vicinity of Curuvija’s apartment, (including calls placed to Radonjic).

The Court found Markovic, Romic, Radonjic and Kurak guilty. Markovic was sentenced to 30 years in prison for orchestrating the murder. Radonjic was sentenced to 30 years in prison for planning the murder, and Romic and Kurak were each sentenced to 20 years in prison for aiding the execution carried out by an “Unknown Person.” At the time of the ruling, Markovic was serving a prison sentence for an unrelated crime, Radonjic and Romic were in home detention while Kurak was in hiding and convicted in absentia.

Both Prosecution and the accused appealed the decision.

On July 15, 2020, the Appeals Court in Belgrade revoked the decision of the lower court, holding that the convictions were based on flawed reasoning and a lack of evidence. It noted that the first instance court had introduced an “Unidentified Person” as the direct perpetrator of the crime even though the Prosecution had consistently maintained that Kurak was the shooter and no evidence about an unidentified person as a shooter had been presented during the trial.  

Accordingly, the Appellate court reversed and remanded the decision back to the first instance court for reconsideration or retrial.

On December 2, 2021, presiding judge Snezana Petrovic publicly announced the judgment of the Higher Court in Belgrade, Special Court for Organized Crime.

The Court held that Markovic incited Radonjic to murder Curuvija, and that Radonjic made an agreement with Romic and Kurak to kill Curuvija, and that, by doing so, Radonjic abused his official authority on several occasions. It found that Kurak and Romic, after Radonjic made it possible, had taken a car belonging to a state service, drove themselves to the place of the murder and enabled an unidentified person to shoot Curuvija and to kick his partner Prpa in the head [p. 56-57 of the final appellate judgment]. The Court found that an unidentified person shot Curuvija and that Kurak and Romic were not the direct killers of Curuvija as the mobile communication evidence indicated that they were talking to each other at the time of murder.

Accordingly, the Court found all four accused guilty, based on almost identical reasons given in the first trial. It ordered sentences of 30 years imprisonment for Markovic and Radonjic and 20 years for Kurak and Romić. 

The Prosecution (seeking an increased sentence of 40 years for every accused) and the Defendants (seeking a complete acquittal) appealed to the Appeals Court in Belgrade. The Court held four hearings in March 2023 and reserved judgment until April 19, 2024. 

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Decision Overview

Judge Vesna Petrović, presiding judge of the five-judge bench, delivered the judgment. The central issue for the Court’s determination was whether the convictions for Curuvija’s murder were sound.

The Court noted that the second judgment from the lower court differed only slightly to its first judgment which had been quashed by the Appeals Court on July 15, 2020, and so the lower court’s second judgment had the same procedural fallacies as it had identified in the first. The Court stressed that the lower court’s judgments violated one of the basic principles of Serbian criminal law – the principle of identity between a judgment and indictment – as the operative part of the judgment was different from the operative part of the indictment. This was because, crucially, the lower court had introduced a new and unidentified person as the direct shooter and the Court found that the lower court had failed to explain how Kurak and Romic enabled an unidentified person to kill Curuvija, when the Prosecution’s case was that Romic and Kurak killed Curuvija. [pp. 56-57] In addition, the Court found that the lower court had omitted to explain whether such person had made an agreement to kill Curuvija only with Romic and Kurak, or also with Markovic. [p. 58]

In respect of Markovic, the Court reiterated that the Prosecution claimed that he had incited Radonjic to kill Curuvija, after Ulemek had refused to carry out the murder but it found no ground for such allegations. It also noted that some of the crucial witnesses, including Ulemek, Milos Simovic and Aleksandar Simovic, had not wanted to testify before the Appeals Court in an adversarial procedure or they had changed their statements previously made during the investigation and so the Court found their prior statements unreliable and not persuasive enough to prove the charges. [p. 74] Commenting on Ulemek’s testimony, the Court questioned his statement that he had met Markovic in March 1999 in an office of the State Security Service when Markovic had asked him and his unit to remove one person that had threatened national security as there was no other evidence which supported that such meeting had actually happened. [p. 64-65] Ulemek refused to repeat his statements from the investigation indicating that he only had indirect knowledge about the murder of Curuvija. [p. 68, 75-76] The Court found that there was no other evidence to support the claim that Markovic ordered or incited Radonjic to murder Curuvija and the mere fact that Radonjic had been hierarchically subordinated to Markovic was not enough to persuade the Court that the two had planned to murder Curuvija. [p 76] The Court mentioned Markovic’s claim that there had been no such meeting in March 1999 and that another witness, Franko Simatovic (who, according to Ulemek, attended that meeting), said that, generally speaking, it was possible that he had seen Ulemek in March 1999 in Belgrade, but that he had not seen Ulemek at the meeting together with Markovic in an office. [p. 70] The Court held that it was not possible for it to conclude that the meeting did, in fact, happen.

Examining the position of Radonjic, the Court found that no evidence was shown to prove that he had made an agreement with Kurak and Romic to murder Curuvija. One of the Prosecution’s arguments was that Radonjic made an illegal order for surveillance of Curuvija’s movements and telephone prior to his murder, but the Court found that Curuvija had already been monitored by State Security Service since 1994, particularly due to his meetings with foreign diplomats and administrative staff. [pp. 77-78] It noted that this was supported by documents and testimonies of witnesses. [pp. 78-81] Accordingly, the Court concluded that measures against Curuvija were taken even before Radonjic was in his position as chief of CRDB Belgrad (a unit of the State Security Service). [p. 81] It also stressed that it was not within the Court’s purview to decide upon the legality of the actions for secret surveillance in this case and that there was no causal relation between the murder and the acts of secret surveillance. [p. 88]

The Court found that the evidence demonstrated that the level of secret surveillance had some justification as Curuvija had indeed met an unidentified person which gave him unknown papers and that a witness, Vladan Dinić, had testified that he had met Curuvija on the day of the murder and that Curuvija had informed him that he had received funds from America for employees’ salaries. [p. 89] The evidence also demonstrated that once that unidentified person had been identified, the secret surveillance on Curuvija had ended – on the day of the murder – and that monitoring was to be done of the person who had handed documents to Curuvija and that the surveillance of telecommunications against Curuvija was not withdrawn. Accordingly, the Court found that there was no evidence that the order for secret surveillance was issued to murder Curuvija. [p. 88-89] The Prosecution and some witnesses claimed that Radonjic’s order to field agents to report to him personally on Curuvija’s every move was part of the plan to murder him as such direct reporting to a senior officer (Radonjic) was unusual. However, the Court found that this sole fact did not prove that Radonjic had an interest in murdering Curuvija, but that it was a part of Radonjic’s method for doing surveillance properly. [p. 90]

The Court assessed Kurak and Romic’s guilt and accepted their rejection of the Prosecution’s arguments that Kurak had shot Curuvija multiple times while Romic helped him and kicked Prpa in her head; that they had had a car from a security service on the day of murder and that they had listened to the communication of field agents monitoring Curuvija and thus had been aware of his location. The Court noted that whether they had used the car or not was of no importance for the case since no agent (or any other witness) that had monitored Curuvija on the day of murder had seen Kurak or Romic. [p. 94-95] The Court emphasized that Prpa claimed that neither Kurak nor Romic was the person that had attacked her and reiterated that Prpa continually claimed that she had remembered the face of the attacker very well, so her claim that Kurak and Romic had not been the attackers was credible. [p. 95]

The Court also elaborated on the telecommunication tapes and documents, in particular the Report of February 12, 2012, about the communication and locations of Kurak and Romic on the day of murder. The Prosecution had argued that this evidence placed both of them close to the place of murder. While the Report did support the Prosecution’s claim, the Court held that such tapes and documents were not reliable and credible due to procedural flaws. [p. 95-102] The Court stated that the Report was not final as – even in the text of the document – it was called a “draft of the Report” and that it had not been created completely in line with a relevant investigating judge’s order of December 16, 2011. 

The Court stressed that it had examined numerous other pieces of evidence, including the articles mentioning Mira Markovic’s statement against Curuvija, but that they were of no importance for the judgment. [p. 105-107]

Accordingly, the Court acquitted all four accused. It did not dispute that Curuvija was an opponent of the then-Serbian Government but said that, with the acquittal, examination of the motives of murder was not possible in this particular case. [p. 107]

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