September 30, 2022
The Court of Appeal in Belgrade will hold a public session from 5th to 9th December for the appeals against the first-instance verdict in the case of the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, which last December sentenced four former members of the State Security Service to a total of 100 years in prison.
Slavko Ćuruvija, a journalist and publisher of newspapers Dnevni telegraf [Daily Telegraph] and Evropljanin [The European], was gunned down and murdered on 11th April 1999. The trial against former senior officials and operatives of the State Security Service, Radomir Marković, Milan Radonjić, Miroslav Kurak, and Ratko Romić, first began in 2015.
The Court of Appeal has already ordered a retrial in a lower court on one occasion, following appeals against the 2019 nonbinding verdict that also sentenced the defendants to a total of 100 years in prison, but on this occasion the court will only have the option of bringing a final, binding verdict.
It is possible that the Court of Appeal’s five-member panel of judges will make a decision to open a trial before a final verdict is passed and after the public session is held. Regardless, we are just a few months away from bringing an end to this legal marathon and very important court process for journalists in Serbia.
