08. 04. 2011

Anniversary of journalist’s murder

Belgrade, April 8, 2011 (B92) - Today marks the 17th anniversary since journalist Radislava Dada Vujasinović's death.

The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) has called on state authorities to solve the murder and put the perpetrators on trial.

NUNS has requested the Special Prosecution for Organized Crime to take over the investigation, which is also expected to shed light on murders of journalists Slavko Ćuruvija and Milan Pantić.

NUNS President Vukašin Obradović has said that it was "time that justice is served" and that "culprits, inspirators and killers are taken to court and punished for the greatest crime committed against a person, profession and freedom".

He has repeated that the State Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac stated recently that mistakes had been made in the investigation similar to those made in the investigations into murder of Ćuruvija and Pantić.

"There is some resistance in all three cases to get to the truth. It is what's common. We obviously need to face the fact that there are still very strong currents in this society that have their roots in the former regime, and they obviously still have an impact on the judiciary and police not to get to the truth about the murder of the journalists," Obradović said.

NUNS points out that the initial investigation determined that Vujasinović had killed herself in her apartment with a hunting rifle, which her family and colleagues never accepted and requested a new investigation.

Their request was met in January 2009 when the District Prosecution in Belgrade instructed police to gather the evidence based on ballistics expert Vlada Kostić's expertise, who determined that the wounds could not have been self-inflicted.

However, the NUNS president adds that it is unknown how far the investigation has gone.

Vujasinović was born in 1964 in the town of Čapljina, Bosnia-Herzegovina. She graduated from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in 1987 and she spent most of her career at weekly Duga.

She was well-known for her war reports from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, investigative work and reports on organized crime. A collection of her work titled "Testimonies (from a disgraced country)" was posthumously published.