Politika urged to apologize for "Curuvija, Racak and Gordic"

Politika urged to apologize for "Curuvija, Racak and Gordic"

It is a cynical attempt of the former editor in chief of Politika Express to lay the blame for the assassination of the famous Belgrade jouranlist Slavko Curuvija posthumously on Zoran Djindjic and the opposition of Slobodan Milosevic, the commission said in a statement signed by its president, Veran Matic, and continued:

"The Commission is appalled by the fact that respectful Belgrade newspaper had agreed to serve sa a platform of Martic's attempt to clear history by denying an ongoing court trial. Djordje Martic will be remembered in the history of Serbian journalism as a man who directly ordered the shameful article '"Curuvija welcomes the bombs', in which he labeled his colleague as NATO traitor and a man who invoked air raids of his homeland. Curuvija was killed several days after the article headlined "Curuvija welcomes the bombs" was read in the central daily newcast on RTS.

The Commission reminds the public that it was established back in February 2013 with a goal to reopen the investigations on the killings of Serbian journalists Slavko Curuvija, Milan Pantic and Dada Vujasinovic, so that Serbia will not remain on the list of countries in which journalists are being killed while their executioners remain unpunished. As a result of the new progress in investigation, Special Prosecution had brought indictments against the leading officials of Milosevic's State Security Agency, and the members of this service, who, according to the indictment, had brutally executed the publisher of Evropljanin and Daily Telegraph, on Easter 1999, in front of the building where he resided in Belgrade. The trial was launched on June 1, 2015, in front of the Special Court in Belgrade, while Djordje Martic and Miroslav Markovic, journalist whom Martic, in his capacity as editor in chief of Politika Express, gave orders to accuse Slavko Curuvija directly for treason, had already gave their statements in court.

"The Commission finds this editorial gesture of Politika incomprehensible, which allows Djordje Martic to continue with targeting people in this respectable newspaper, without asking him for an explanation as to why he had put symbolical target on Slavko Curuvija's back. They hadn't asked him whether he mourns his colleague who was, immediately following the publishing of the article that Martic had directly ordered and published, hit with the hail of bullets in his back in a mob-like assassination, only to be "sealed" with one shot in the head from point blank range."

"The Commission calls on the editorial staff of Politika to publish this statement and to apologyze to the public for this editorial oversight."