06. 06. 2014

Indictment raised in Ćuruvija case

6.6.2014. (B92) - The indictment for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija has been raised 15 years after the journalist and publisher was shot and killed outside his home in Belgrade.

The accused are former members of the State Security (DB) Radomir Marković, Milan Radonjić, Ratko Romić, and Miroslav Kurak.

The murder investigation was launched in mid-January, and ended on Wednesday, when the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime heard the last witness, former Interior Minister Dušan Mihajlović.

Marković was the head of the DB, Radonjić headed the service's Belgrade Center, Romić served as chief intelligence inspector of the DB administration, while Kurak was a member of the reserves.

Marković has been charged with incitement to murder, while others are accused as his co-perpetrators. Earlier it was reported that it is believed Kurak was the one who pulled the trigger.

Marković is currently serving 40 years in jail for the murder of Ivan Stambolić and assassinations on the Ibar highway of SPO party officials. Radonjić and Romić were arrested in January and are in the custody, while Kurak is a fugitive.

A key witness in the investigation, after whose testimony Radonjić and Romić were detained, was former commander of the JSO unit Milorad Ulemek, aka Legija, himself serving multiple maximum sentences for his role in the assassination of Zoran Đinđić, and other serious crimes. As announced in January by Prosecutor Miljko Radosavljević, Ulemek testified on his own initiative and unconditionally, and spoke in detail about what he knew about the Ćuruvija liquidation.

"The person who gave the direct order, according to what has been learned so far, was Radomir Marković. Whether we will get to a higher level, to someone who was above him - we'll see, we'll wait for the investigation," he said.The prosecutor also added that direct perpetrators were "without a doubt" Kurak and Romić.

For the first time since the murder which took place on April 11, 1999, Ćuruvija's common law wife Branka Prpa also testified during the investigation. After the arrests earlier this year, Prpa, who was with Ćuruvija when he was killed, said Kurak was not the person who shot him.