Curuvija trial: Key evidence included in third attempt

Curuvija trial: Key evidence included in third attempt

According to the prosecution and the Curuvija family lawyers, although the defendants testified that they were in another location when the murder took place, this report confirms that the accused Miroslav Kurak and Ratko Romic were at the scene of the crime.

The Special Court, at the request of the defense, had previously decided twice to exclude this evidence from the case file, but the Appellate Court ruled to include it for a second time on Tuesday.

That is why the report of a specialized expert from the Security Intelligence Agency was shown in the courtroom today, which was previously requested by the preliminary procedure judge in this process. Until March 2018, this report had been marked secret.

Wednesday's hearing started with a delay, because at the very beginning, the judge gave the defense an hour and a half to consider the latest decision of the Appellate Court restoring this evidence to the proceedings.

As Insajder reported on Tuesday, the Appellate Court again accepted the prosecutor's appeal in the process for the murder of Curuvija, finding that the databases from (telephone) base stations had been obtained in a lawful manner - something that the defense had previously contested.

After the latest decision of the Appellate Court, and after the defense withdrew the request to exempt this evidence, the Trial Chamber of the Special Court ruled that the evidence be included in the proceedings.

As the Chairperson of the Trial Chamber Snezana Jovanovic said, a report on the re-recording and review of forensic analysis was made in 2012 and contains 17 annexes. It was compiled by an expert from the Security and Information Agency from the appropriate department responsible for expertise of the content, and by the order of the preliminary procedure judge.

The report, as seen on the screen in the courtroom, contains intercepted communications from phone numbers owned by the accused, as well as other members of the State Security, as well as cell phone base stations on the day of Curuvija's murder.

The report itself was not analyzed at today's trial, while defense representatives briefly commented on this report, which for the Prosecutor's Office and members of the Ćuruvija family represent one of the most important pieces of evidence.

Prior to that, the lawyer of the daughter of Slavko Curuvija told Insajder that the return of this evidence to the case was an important decision.

"It is important for us that the evidence relating to the movement of mobile phones of the accused remains in the case because this is one of the most important pieces of evidence, especially in relation to the accused Romic and Kurak, who were on the day of the murder and the day before the murder in the area where he (Curuvija) was killed," Ruzic told Insajder.

The representative of the first defendant Radomir Markovic, Vladimir Marinkov, asked the judge to declare himself on this evidence in writing in the next 15 days, which she approved.

He briefly commented that the report was controversial because it had no header, no seal, and there were only three signatures at its end.

The lawyer assessed that the report was not the same as an expert report and expressed doubts that only a part of this report had been submitted to the court.

Most comments on the latest evidence at today's trial was given by the legal representative of the two defendants, Milan Radonjic and Ratko Romic, lawyer Zora Dobricanin-Nikodinovic.

In addition to the report, she requested that the court examine the files, letters and certificates on the basis of which it was compiled, because that would "prove all the illegal actions of the prosecution authority in this case."

The judge asked her several times not to repeat, analyze and read out all the files she wants to admit into evidence, but to make a specific statement on this proposed evidence.

After the defendants made brief statements about this report, mostly challenging it, the hearing was concluded because, as the judge said, "courtroom number 1 had to be freed up."

The presiding judge of the trial chamber also said that the continuation of the proceedings was scheduled for September 21, and called on the defense and the prosecution to prepare well for the next hearing, adding that the proceedings were "closer to the end than the beginning" and that the time when the closing arguments will be presented depends on the speed of presenting the remaining evidence.

During this hearing, the lawyers of Romic and Radonjic also asked that their clients be released, which the Trial Chamber refused.

The court in 2017 released Radonjic and Romic to house arrest, and ordered them to wear electronic surveillance, although they stood accused of murder in this case, which caused a strong reaction by the public.

Despite the fact that two different appellate courts decided to return the evidence to court proceedings, the lawyer to Romic and Radonjic continues to claim that the evidence was illegally obtained.

When asked by an Insjader journalist why she decided to withdraw the request for exclusion of the evidence from this procedure today, Dobricanin-Nikodinovic said that she had stated the reasons in the courtroom, and then she repeated:

"It is my pleasure that all the evidence will be read because it will prove just how unlawfully the case has been conducted. While earlier I asked for the evidence to be excluded professionally, as a lawyer."

Asked to comment on the fact that the two different appellate court tribunals made the same decision that the evidence was obtained in a lawful manner, she said, "it's that way when you interpret it like that," and asked the journalist if they were a lawyer.

Journalist and owner of Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin newspapers Slavko Curuvija was killed on April 11, 1999 in Svetogorska Street, Belgrade, at the entrance of the building where he lived.

After 16 years of investigation the case came to an indictment and trial only in 2015, after the formation of the Commission to Investigate Murders of Journalists.

The accused are former Chief of the State Security (DB) Radomir Markovic, the head of the Belgrade center DB Milan Radonjic, former chief inspector of the Second Administration of the DB, Ratko Romic, and Miroslav Kurak, a reserve member of the DB.

According to the indictment, Curuvija was killed by Kurak, who is on the run, and his accomplice was Romic, who, like Radonjic, was arrested in January 2014.

Zora Dobricanin-Nikodinovic, at the beginning of the trial on Wednesday declared that she remains in the request to exclude these evidence from the proceedings, also referred to a statement made by the president of the Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalist Veran Matic.

"Veran Matic did not want to be a witness in this procedure, in order to be able to follow the trial, and now he wants to be a supreme judge and to rule in this procedure. His statement violated the human rights of my clients, ours, but also yours," she told the Trial Chamber.

Judge Snezana Jovanovic responded to this claim by the lawyer by saying, "Do not underestimate this court."