Appeals Court acquits persons accused of journalist Slavko Curuvija’s murder

The court ruled to acquit RDB chief Radomir Markovic and his subordinates, Milan Radonjic, Miroslav Kurak and Ratko Romic.

By accepting the appeals of the defense and partly accepting the appeal of the Prosecutor's Office, the court overturned an earlier court ruling and acquitted the four defendants, Insajder said.

Slavko Curuvija was gunned down in front of his apartment building on April 11, 1999, during the NATO air campaign on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The first trial for the murder of Curuvija began in June 2015 – 16 years after his assassination.

In 2019 a Belgrade court sentenced four former secret police officers to prison for the 1999 murder of journalist and newspaper publisher Curuvija but ruled that the man who pulled the trigger was not among them.

The four defendants were given a total of 100 years in prison. Markovic and Belgrade State Security Service center chief Milan Radonjic were sentenced to 30 years each while agents Ratko Romic and Miroslav Kurk got 20 years each. The court ruled that Markovic ordered Radonjic to organize the killing and that Romic and Kurak were ordered to commit it but that the person who fired the gun that killed Curuvija had not been identified during the trial.