Slavko ĆURUVIJA
On 2 February 2024, the Belgrade Court of Appeals announced that it had acquitted four former Serbian state security officers who had already been twice convicted of the murder of journalist, editor, and publisher Slavko Ćuruvija, shot and killed outside his house in Belgrade on 11 April 1999. Ćuruvija was an outspoken critic of former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. According to news reports, the verdict, which cited lack of reliable evidence, was reached on 19 April 2023, but was only made public on 2 February 2024 and is final. The Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation subsequently appealed to Serbia’s Supreme Court to assess whether the appellate proceedings adhered to the rule of law. In December 2024, the Foundation reported receiving online death threats and promptly informed the Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime.
In March 1999, Ćuruvija was fined and sentenced to five months in prison for ‘spreading false information’, after he published a story linking the killing of a Belgrade doctor to then Serbian deputy prime minister, Milovan Bojić. Ćuruvija was appealing the sentence at the time of his death. On 5 February 2019, the Higher Court in Belgrade convicted four former State Security Directorate (RDB) officers for their role in the killing. Radomir Marković, former Head of the RDB, and Milan Radonjić, RDB officer, were sentenced to 30 years in prison, while agents Ratko Romić and Miroslav Kurak received 20 years. On 15 July 2020, the Belgrade Court of Appeals overturned the previous verdicts, ruling that they violated the rules of criminal procedure, and ordered a retrial. On 2 December 2021, the Higher Court in Belgrade convicted the same officers again and sentenced them to the same prison terms. Their appeal started at the Belgrade Court of Appeal in March 2023, ending up with their acquittal. PEN International condemned the decision as sending a dangerous signal that attacks against writers and journalists in Serbia would go unpunished.
Slavko Ćuruvija, born on 9 August 1949, was the owner of Serbia’s first private daily newspaper Dnevni Telegraf and the weekly magazine Evropljanin. His book Ibeovac (1990) is based on his interviews with Vladimir ‘Vlado’ Dapčević, a former political dissident and prisoner.