December 1, 2021
The three-member panel of judges of the Higher Court in Belgrade’s Special Department for Organised Crime is set to announce on Thursday, 2nd December, the second first-instance verdict in one of the most important trials in Serbia’s recent history. Those accused of the murder of journalist and publisher Ćuruvija, who was gunned down in front of his home on 11th April, 1999, are four former members of the State Security Service: Radomir Marković, Milan Radonjić, Ratko Romić and Miroslav Kurak.
The four were first found guilty in April 2019 and received initial, first-instance sentences totalling 100 years in prison. However, that verdict was subsequently overturned by the Court of Appeal, with a new trial ordered and convened on 5th October last year.
During the culmination of the retrial, three of the accused – Marković, Radonjić and Romić – used their closing arguments, as they had done in the previous trial, to deny their guilt in Ćuruvija’s murder. The fourth defendant, Miroslav Kurak, has spent years on the run and is being tried in abstentia.
The prosecutor used his closing argument to call for 40-year sentences for each of the accused.
