BELGRADE -- Western nations, rights groups, family members, and opposition activists condemned a February 2 ruling by a Belgrade appeals court to acquit four former Serbian intelligence officers who had been convicted and imprisoned in the 1999 murder of a prominent journalist and government critic.
“I am shocked by this scandalous ruling,” said Jelena Curuvija, the leader of a media rights group and daughter of Slavko Curuvija, who was shot dead in front of his Belgrade apartment on April 11, 1999.
The U.S. State Department, in remarks to VOA, said that “it is disheartening to see that justice and responsibility for Slavko Curuvija's killers remain elusive, even 25 years after his murder. A sad day for journalism."
"We reaffirm our commitment to end impunity for crimes against journalists and call on the global community to unite in seeking accountability for those who direct and perpetrate violence, harass and intimidate media workers," the State Department added.
Teresa Ribeiro, a representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), assailed the court ruling.
“The fact that this case still remains unresolved, almost 25 years after this courageous journalist was murdered, is very disturbing,” Ribeiro said in a statement.
“Impunity for this heinous crime is not only extremely painful for Curuvija’s family and colleagues, but also deeply disappointing for the whole of Serbian society. The true test of a rule-of-law based society is how it delivers justice, especially to those who put themselves at risk to uphold the values of a free press,” she added.
Slavko Curuvija’s killing became a symbol of the fight for journalistic freedom in a Serbia led at the time by Yugoslav and Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who ruled from 1989 to 2000, when he was overthrown.
Milosevic was arrested in 2001 and held at a UN court in The Hague for genocide and other war crimes committed during the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
He died in the tribunal's detention unit in 2006 before a verdict was reached.
The Court of Appeals in the Serbian capital on February 2 overturned the convictions of the four former intelligence officers, clearing Radomir Markovic of charges of instigating aggravated murder, and Milan Radonjic, Miroslav Kurak, and Ratko Romic, as accomplices in committing aggravated murder.
"In the absence of direct and indirect evidence that conclusively proves that Markovic, Radonjic, Kurak, and Romic are perpetrators of this criminal act, the Court of Appeals finds that the allegations of the indictment are not unequivocally proven," the court said in a statement on its website.
The trial for the murder began in June 2015 -- nearly 17 years after Curuvija's death.
In 2019, the Special Court in Belgrade found the four former state security members guilty of the murder, sentencing them to terms of 20-30 years.
The court stated that the immediate perpetrator of the murder was an unknown person.
However, the Court of Appeals overturned that verdict in September 2020, citing that the Special Court exceeded the charges and altered the factual situation described in the indictment by introducing an unknown person as the immediate perpetrator of the murder.
In a retrial in December 2021, the Special Court issued a new verdict, again sentencing Markovic and Radonjic to 30 years each, while Romic and Kurak received 20-year terms.
At the time, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomed the verdict “as a fragile progress in bringing justice for crimes committed against journalists” in the Balkans.
Following the appeals court’s February 2 verdict, RSF said it was "devastated" by the acquittal.
Jelena Curuvija said the latest ruling “sends a frightening message to all journalists and all people.”
“This verdict is a proof that the dark forces of the 1990s still rule this country. This is a land of darkness.”
Serbia’s current leader, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, is a former ultranationalist who was information minister in the late 1990s when Milosevic led Serbia into war with NATO over Kosovo.
Vucic has attempted to maintain traditional close ties with Russia while at the same time continuing to press the Balkan nation’s hopes of joining the European Union.