Veran Matić: The Supreme Court of Serbia ruled that the court panel violated the law in the case against the suspects for the murder of Ćuruvija.
The President of the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists, Veran Matić, stated that he welcomes the ruling of the Supreme Court of Serbia, which determined that there was a violation of the law in two of the most important segments of the indictment and during the trial for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija – regarding the testimony of a key witness, who, according to the acquittal ruling of the Appellate Court, did not adhere to his previous statements during the trial, even though the trial records clearly indicate the opposite – that he remained consistent with his earlier statements. The same violation of the law was noted concerning the testimonies of four other witnesses.
By ruling number Kzz OK 38-2024 dated October 13, 2024, the Supreme Court of Serbia partially accepted the request for the protection of legality filed by the public prosecutor of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, KTŽ 166-24 dated September 2, 2024. The ruling established that the panel of the Appellate Court in Belgrade, Special Department for Organized Crime, composed of Vesna Petrović, chair of the panel, Nada Hadži Perić, Dragan Ćesarović, Marko Jocić, and Dušanka Đorđević, in its ruling Kž1-Po1 9/22 dated April 19, 2023, violated the law within the meaning of Article 438, paragraph 2, point 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, to the benefit of the defendants Radomir Marković, Milan Radonjić, Miroslav Kurak, and Ratko Romić, and thus, contrary to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, issued an acquittal for the aforementioned defendants in the criminal proceedings for the serious murder of journalist and owner of the daily newspaper Dnevni telegraf and the weekly Evropljanin, Slavko Ćuruvija.
The Supreme Court of Serbia also determined that the aforementioned judges violated the law in favor of the defendants by factually misrepresenting decisive facts in the ruling, both regarding the testimonies of key witnesses and concerning the "Report on Surveillance and Forensic Analysis and Review of Stored Data on Achieved Telephone Communication" dated February 12, 2012. This report essentially represents an analysis of mutual communications that occurred between April 9 and April 12, 1999, between Milan Radonjić, Ratko Romić, and Miroslav Kurak, whose phone numbers are listed exhaustively, as well as the phone card number of the defendant Radomir Marković, with all data on time, type of traffic, duration, cells, and addresses of base stations through which the communication was established, alongside an analysis of communications based on the unique identification number of the telephone device (IMEI).
This ruling concludes the legal proceedings against the aforementioned defendants, as the Criminal Procedure Code stipulates that the Supreme Court, when it determines that there has been a violation of the law, cannot affect the legal validity of the contested decision to the detriment of the defendants.
However, the question remains open as to whether the members of the panel of the Special Department of the Appellate Court, in issuing the acquittal, merely violated the law or if they also breached it, which could be subject to criminal liability.
This ruling does not bring satisfaction to anyone. Some defendants have filed multiple lawsuits against those who criticized the ruling, which, as stated in the ruling of the Supreme Court of Serbia, constituted a significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure.
The family of Slavko Ćuruvija is owed the truth about the masterminds and killers by the state and the relevant institutions, not just a statement regarding the violation of legality during the acquittal of the accused. Colleagues from Dnevni telegraf and Evropljanin are owed the full truth about the months-long repression against the media house they worked for, against them and their families. Just as the acquittal ruling of the Appellate Panel was not the end of this process, neither should this ruling of the Supreme Court be its conclusion, but rather the beginning of a new phase in establishing accountability for the outcome of the trial and a continuation of the investigation that will determine all the facts about the killers and masterminds.
Veran Matić,
Chairman of the Commission for the Investigation of the Murders of Journalists
