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Serbian Journalist’s Murder Defendants Reject Incriminating Evidence

September 21, 201817:46
Former Serbian state security officers charged with the 1999 murder of opposition journalist Slavko Curuvija rejected evidence that allegedly places them at the scene of the crime.

This post is also available in this language: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp

Curuvija watches his newspaper being printed. Photo courtesy of Slavko Curuvija Foundation.

At a hearing before the Belgrade Higher Court on Friday, former Serbian state security officers Milan Radonjic and Ratko Romic refuted incriminating evidence about their communications prior to Slavko Curuvija’s murder.

Radonjic said that he never communicated by telephone with Milan Kurak, who according to the indictment was the direct perpetrator of the murder of the opposition journalist.

“I saw that man no more than ten times and we only exchanged ‘hellos’,” Radonjic told the court.

Romic also rejected some of the evidence, denying that he contacted Marko Zarkovic, a witness in the case, two days prior to Curuvija’s murder on April 11, 1999.

“Contacts with Radonjic and Kurak were on a daily basis, and it was nothing unusual for us to keep in touch,” Romic said.

The evidence about mobile phone communications in the Slavko Curuvija murder case was accepted by the Higher Court in July, after the appeals court ruled that it had been acquired legally.

The trial for the murder of Curuvija opened in 2015, 16 years after he was shot dead. He was allegedly killed because of his opposition to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

According to the indictment, an ‘unknown person’ ordered the killing of Curuvija and Radomir Markovic, the former head of Serbian State Security, abetted the crime, while three former security service officers – Ratko Romic, Milan Radonjic and Miroslav Kurak – took part in the organisation and execution of the murder.

Kurak was the direct perpetrator, while Romic was his accomplice, it is alleged.

Three of the suspects have pleaded not guilty, while Kurak is on the run and is being tried in absentia.

Markovic is currently serving a 40-year sentence for the murder of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic and other crimes, while Romic was acquitted alongside Radonjic in September last year of the attempted murder of opposition party leader Vuk Draskovic.

Read more:

Serbian Court Accepts Disputed Evidence on Journalist’s Murder

This post is also available in this language: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp


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