Branka Prpa, witness to Curuvija's murder, testifies

Branka Prpa, witness to Curuvija's murder, testifies

Prpa was responding to questions from Kurak's defense lawyer Stevan Protic when she explained that she saw his client's photograph published in the media, shown to her by a reporter.

"I commented then that this face does not look like the killer," she said.

Several former members of the former State Security (DB) agency are on trial in the case.

Prpa, who was struck in the head during the incident, told the court that she looked at the killer, who was standing above her, from the ground:

"His face was revealed, he wore a black wool cap and a jacket. His face was amorphous, without particular physical characteristics. He had a broad face, and large black eyes, and was very pale."

Prpa also said the shooter "could not have been very tall - about 175 centimeters, stocky, buff, with a short neck."

According to her, on April 11, 1999, the day of the murder, Curuvija and she took a walk around 14:00 hours and on the way back, in the passage of the building in Svetogorska St. where they lived, "Slavko started to fall as if he had tripped over something."

"Slavko started to fall and he held my hand. I turned to see what was happening and then I received a blow to the head and fell down. Slavko fell before me and I after him. As I was lying I saw a man approach us, who were on the ground, with a pistol. He approached Slavko and shot him in the head," Prpa told the court, adding that "the man with the gun then came to her."

"I kept silent and looked and he kept silent and turned around and calmly and slowly left the scene of the crime," the witness said.

Asked by the prosecutor "whether there were two persons at the scene even though she only saw one man," Prpa said that the shooter could not have been the same person who struck her.

"That's why I had the feeling that somebody else struck me. Mostly because we were falling almost simultaneously," she said.

Questioned by the defense, Prpa said that, from his description, "Luka Pejovic looked the most like the killer of Curuvija."

Pejovic was a reserve member of the Special Operations Unit (JSO) who was shot and killed in an ambush in Belgrade in December 2000.

Testifying today, Prpa also said that "Slavko Curuvija was persecuted in a way recorded for the first time when it comes to independent journalism."

"The basis for that was the Law on Information," she said, adding that based on the legislation, "not only could journalists and editors be punished, but collective guilt was also introduced."

Another provision was confiscation of not only the media's assets but also of private property, Prpa said, claiming that decisions to shut down media outlets were made within 24 hours, "something that happened to Slavko first with the Evropljanin magazine and then with everything else."

Prpa also told the court that she and Curuvija wished to leave Serbia and that he "attempted to find an apartment in Montenegro, but later gave up on that - he didn't want to leave Serbia and was saying, 'what can they do to me - they can only shoot me...'."

She said Curuvija had no political ambitions, "although he joked he would create his own party because the others were no good."

Curuvija's daughter Jelena Curuvija also testified today to tell the court that her father was wiretapped and persecuted via the media for months before he was killed. According to her, Ćuruvija was in conflict only with Mira (Mirjana) Markovic, the wife of then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

She also presented a property-legal claim against those accused in the case, but did not specify a sum.

Responding to a question by the defense, Jelena Curuvija said that only debts and empty accounts were left behind her father and that she was unaware of him "receiving some big money."

"We inherited what we inherited, and there was no money. Only debts, empty accounts and safes," she said.

The defense of the accused also attempted to raise the issue of Slavko Curuvija's security, that is, his bodyguards, but his daughter said she had no detailed information about them, including how he hired them.

In her testimony, Branka Prpa said that these security members also guarded the newsroom, "and also us, if needed," and that Curuvija "took them along more in a theatrical manner when they went somewhere."

According to her testimony, Curuvija rented the apartment on the ground floor of their house, the house where "people who warned him who was entering and who was exiting lived."

Slavko Curuvija, born in 1949, a journalist and publisher, was the founder of Nedeljni Telegraf, Dnevni Telegraf, and Evropljanin. He was shot and killed in Belgrade on Easter, in April 1999.