April 11, 2017
It is unclear how long the trial will last for the murder of Ćuruvija, carried out precisely 18 years ago. Almost two years after the start of the trial of four defendents, an end is still not in sight
By Svetlana Palić
Eighteen years havs elapsed since the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, owner and editor of daily newspaper Dnevni telegraf and news magazine Evropljanin, but during the course of the trial, which began almost two years ago, not even all of the prosecution witnesses have been heard to date.
If witness testimonies continue at this pace, a first instance judgement will not even be able to be brought in the following year.
Slavko Ćuruvija was murdered at Easter on 11th April 1999, at the height of the NATO bombing campaign. That day he went for Sunday lunch with his friend Branko Prpa. As they walked around downtown Belgrade and Kalemegdan Fortress, they were followed by members of the Ninth Department of the Belgrade Centre of the State Security Service.
They had to immediately report every change and every detail to the Chief of the Centre, Milan Radonjić, who was in charge of monitoring. A few minutes prior to the assassination, this monitoring was halted abruptly and the team of the Ninth department was ordered to withdraw immediately.
Slavko Ćuruvija was killed by 17 gunshots in the foyer of the building at 35 Svetogorska Street.
Indictment 15 and a half years later
The indictment for this crime was only filed 15 and a half years later, in December 2014. As is stated in the indictment, the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija was organised at the very top of the state security service, headed by then Chief of the Sector Radomir Marković. Cited as the co-organiser is Milan Radonjić, former head of the Belgrade State Security Service Centre. Charged with actually committing the murder are Ratko Romić, then Chief Inspector of the Second Administration of the State Security Service, and Miroslav Kurak, a State Security Service reservist. According to the indictment, Kurak shot Ćuruvija, while Romić used the butt of his gun to strike Branko Prpa in the back of his head.
Marković is serving a 40-year prison terms for the attempted assassination of Vuk Drašković on the Ibar Highway, while he was previously found guilty of organising the attempted assassination of Drašković in Budva and the murder of Ivan Stambolić on Fruška Gora.
Radonjić and Romić have been in custody since January 2014. The Trial Chamber did not accept the insistence of their lawyer, Zore Dobričanin Nikodinović, that they be allowed to defend themselves from freedom. Miroslav Kurak is on the run and is being tried in absentia.
“The State bodies in charge of bringing him [Kurak] to justice must know that their work is not finished with the issuing of warrants for his arrest. The public has a right to know whether our country is waiting for him to appear at one of Europe’s borders or whether it has a concrete plan to discover where he’s hiding and bring him in,” reads the statement of the Commission for investigation murders of journalists, which was signed by its president, Veran Matić.
Only 24 witnesses heard in the first year
The trial for Ćuruvija’s murder began on 1st June 2015 in the building of the Special Department for Organised Crime of the Higher Court in Belgrade’s Ustanička Street. At the preliminary hearing the prosecution proposed 90 witnesses, while the number of defence witnesses is still unknown.
It was stated at the beginning of the trial that the lawyers of the four accused would call around 20 witnesses, but the exact number is still unknown, also due to the fact that the court may reject defence proposals that it deems to be unfounded.
The Trail Chamber’s three-judge panel, presided over by Snežana Jovanović, heard the testimonies of 24 prosecution witnesses in the first year.
They were all employees of the State Security Service. The majority of them are members of the Ninth (monitoring) department, which followed Ćuruvija 24 hours a day from 8th to 11th April. These witnesses generally had poor recollections of what they did on that day, where they were, how they reported and what they saw and heard.
It was confirmed irrefutably, however, that as many as 27 members of the State Security Service were following Ćuruvija continuously, in shifts, 24 hours a day. And that they were suddenly withdrawn minutes prior to the murder, so that – according to the indictment – they would not be seen by the killer, thereby leaving the target unprotected.
Testimony of Milorad Ulemek
The second year of the trial saw 39 witnesses heard, with the trial chamber having decided to schedule more than two hearings per month, which was the amount generally held during 2015.
Among the witnesses was also Milorad Ulemek aka Legija, former commander of the Special Operations Unit. His testimony in January 2014 – when he stated that he had heard from Radomir Marković who the killers of Ćuruvija were, and that prior to that he had been asked by the State Security Service Chief to kill the owner of Dnevni Telegraf – was presented in the media as being crucial to filing the indictment.
Ulemek, who is serving a combined 40-year sentence at the Požarevac “Alcatraz” for the murders of Zoran Đinđić and Ivan Stambolić and the assassination attempts on Vuk Drašković in Budva and on the Ibar highway, testified before the Trial Chamber on 27th September 2016.
Ulemek repeated part of his testimony, in which he stated that Marković told him after one meeting that his navigators in his next action would be “those Radonja’s who killed Ćuruvija” (Romić and Kurak), but under direct questioning by deputy prosecutor Milenko Mandić he declined to repeat his claim that Radomir Marković asked him, with his Special Operations Unit, to organise the murder of the Dnevni Telegraf owner.
According to Ulemek’s previous testimony, Marković had said: “It is necessary to remove one person who, with his current hostile activities, is seriously threatening the security of the state.”
Before the court, Ulemek invoked his right not to have to say something that could lead to him being exposed to further prosecution. He also said that him and his family are being threatened, indirectly alluding to the accused Romić.
It is interesting that the last witness to have so far testified, Zoran Stijović, a former State Security Service official, accused Radonjić of murder threats. Stijović testified on the destruction of State Security Service documentation, including parts of the Slavko Ćuruvija dossier.
The same reason – fears for the safety of family members – also led to former Zemun Clan members, brothers Miloš and Aleksandar Simović, not wanting to testify in detail. However, from their testimonies, as well as the testimonies of protected witnesss Dejan Milenković aka Bagzi and Miladin Suvajdžić, known as Đura Mutavi, it was confirmed that Ulemek asked the Zemun Clan to murder Kurak and Romić, who he said had killed Ćuruvija.
Ulemek’s testimony was presented in the media as being crucial, though the prosecutor’s office distanced itself from such claims. However, expectations are high, so there were conflicting reactions following the testimony.
Then president of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia, Vukašin Obradović stated for publication Novi magazin:
“The prosecution has obviously succumbed to pressure to complete this process as soon as possible, even with the help of Milorad Ulemek Legija. After what Ulemek testified, it seems to me that it’s clear such a strategy was a mistake, because the court hasn’t offered any new material evidence that would confirm the allegations in the indictment.”
The legal representative of Slavko Ćuruvija’s children Jelena and Rade, Slobodan Ružić, reacted sharply to Obradović’s statement: he considers Ulemek’s testimony is being valid, because it is clear that Radomir Marković, with his statement “those Radonja’s who killed Ćuruvija”, practically suggesting who the assassins were.
“After 2000 there was some kind of order for the members of the Zemun Clan to kill Romić and Kurako, and after to come to his [Ulemek’s] place, and that later that order was revoked,” said Ružić for the same publication.
Veran Matić, President of the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists, had a similar impression. He stated immediately after the former SOU commander had testified:
“Milorad Ulemek confirmed that Radomir Marković told him who the killers were, and he said that he sticks by his previous statement that Radomir Marković asked him to kill Kurako and Romić, as well as that he was threatened to withdraw from testifying. More than this couldn’t even have been expected. The case, after his testimony, is even stronger.”
State Security links with the murder
A few days before Ulemek, on 23rd September 2016, testimony was given by Zoran Mijatović, deputy chief of the State Security Service after the 5th October revolution. He said that there are links between the State Security Service and the murder:
“There cannot be coincidence in the fact that the Service followed both Slavko Ćuruvija and Vuk Drašković, and that both times the monitoring was stopped just before the murder.”
Also testifying before the three-judge trial chamber were senior officials of state and public security services, Milorad Bracanović and Dragan Karleuša, Rodoljub Milović, Mile Novaković and Boro Banjac. Some of them had investigated the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija and served as senior officials in “Poskok” and the later established UBPOK – police units formed with the aim of shedding light on murders considered as having a political motive.
Two of three crimes have been solved (the murder of Ivan Stambolić and the attempted assassination of Vuk Drašković on the Ibar Highway), while the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija remains without an epilogue.
Failing to show at the trial were former State Security chief Jovica Stanišić and his deputy, the creator of Ulemek’s “Red Berets” SOU, Franko Simatović aka Frenki. Stanišić is said to be seriously ill, while Simatović was scheduled to testify three times, but didn’t show up even once. Thus the court has yet to hear an explanation for the prosecution’s claim that Simatović spoke with Miroslav Kurako three times on the day of the murder.
The trial’s latest hearing saw testimony given by former Interior Minister Dušan Mihajlović, who repeated the statements “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know” so many times that reporters counted that during just the first day of his two-day testimony he uttered them as many as a hundred times.
In the opinion of the lawyer of the defendants, “this kind of trial process only harms families and the public”.
Radomir Marković’s lawyer, Vladimir Marinkov, says that after two years of the trial it cannot be said that revealing the murderer of Slavko Ćuruvija is closer now than before indictments were filed in this case.
“After a huge number of prosecution witnesses, the only thing we can conclude is that the prosecution is trying to disguise the lack of evidence and the fact that is has accused innocent people with this kind of approach to the trial. From month to month we hear from witnesses who have no knowledge of the subject matter of this trial, there is no physical evidence, and the proceedings amounts to questioning the work of various state bodies and services in the period between 1998 and 2003. Today it is quite clear that the indictment in this case is contrived and filed only to lead a trial, without any tangible evidence whatsoever, and even before light has been shed on the most basic facts relating to this case,” considers Marinkov.
Number of defence witnesses unknown
It remains for the testimonies of 27 prosecution witnesses to be heard, for physical evidence to be revealed and for defence witnesses to be heard. To date the exact number of defence witnesses is unknown, as the trial chamber has yet to make its final decision on this issue.
It is certain, as confirmed for us by Miroslav Kurako’s lawyer Stevan Protić, that he will not propose a single witness, Radomir Marković’s lawyers will have several (“around ten”), while the most defence witnesses are expected to be called by Zore Dobričanin Nikodinović, defending Radonjić and Romić.
To date there have been speculations on a figure of thirty defence witnesses, but it is pointless to discuss this further until the Trial Chamber has its final say.
The trial for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija continues on 12th May 2017 with the testimonies of three witnesses who didn’t get their turn in April, despite being planned. Among them is former State Security Chief Goran Petrović.
OBSERVER’S IMPRESSIONS: WE’RE A LONG WAY FROM AN EPILOGUE
Nikola Radišić, journalist of N1 TV, believes that this trial is followed more than others, but that there is a striking lack of analysis and, more importantly, comments and positions of the prosecution. He says that even when the media try to get a comment, they are confronted by a wall of silence from the prosecution, which is not good in a case that is of great importance to the public.
“Although it seems that the trial is lasting indefinitely, it is still scheduled and connected more often and faster than most others. Once a month, between three and five days of trial, is much better than the average of the judiciary in Serbia. However, the hearings themselves are very slow. The questioning of witnesses is endless, with them posed a series of the same questions, which are often repeated, so one gets the impression that the witnesses are being deliberately bombarded with questions. In the end they seem completely exhausted and often distracted, and their testimony becomes increasingly unclear,” says Radišić.
He doesn’t expect a verdict to be forthcoming anytime soon, “and when it comes, it will be a first instance” verdict. “Considering how most publicly interesting trials go, I don’t think it will be the final one either. This means that we won’t have an epilogue to this trial for a few more years, and even then we perhaps won’t have the epilogue of the case.”
From the questions of the trial chamber, says Politika journalist Dorotea Čarnić, it is clear that they are particularly interested in the white Golf [VW car], which belonged to the Department, and which was used by defendant Ratko Romić.
Čarnić says that the most siginificant thing is that the majority of witnesses confirmed the unusual activity of the Belgrade State Security Service Centre on the day of and before the murder, in terms of intense monitoring and untypically frequent reporting of chief Milan Radonjić regarding Ćuruvija’s movement, as well as the fact that the tracking was halted directly before the murder.
“At this juncture it’s difficult to predict how long the process could last, but it is certain that we’re a long way from the first instance verdict,” she says.
Veran Matić, President of the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists, believes that the Ćuruvija case must be a priority.
“This trial could be effectively conducted with a greater number of days of questioning witnesses, because the fact that we waited far too long for the judicial process justifies some kind of priority when it comes to the public interest,” he says.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S MISTAKE
Amnesty International also pointed out the importance of the Ćuruvija case in its latest report.
At the same time, however, the part of the report in which Amnesty International claims that the trial for the murder of Ćuruvija was stalled due to a “key witness” not showing up – is not correct.
Todor Gardos subsequently explained to the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation that they had been referring to Milorad Ulemek. Ulemek, however, testified in September 2016.
Officials of the High Court in Belgrade say that AI’s claims are incorrect, that all witnesses respond to court summons and that there has been no stalling, with only one hearing delayed of the 50 that had been scheduled until that time.
On the other hand, both prosecution and defence lawyers agree that there have been delays and obstructions to the investigation, which has not been completed after a full 15 years.
Photo: Dalibor Danilović
