BELGRADE -- The Court of Appeals in the Serbian capital on February 2 overturned the convictions of four former intelligence officers on charges related to the murder of independent journalist and government critic Slavko Curuvija in April 1999.
In overturning the initial convictions, the court cleared 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.
Curuvija, prominent owner and editor of the independent Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin publications, was killed on April 11, 1999, in the passage in front of the building where he lived.
He was a vocal critic of late Yugoslav and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who ruled from 1989 to 2000, when he was overthrown.
The trial began in June 2015 -- nearly 17 years after Curuvija's death.
In 2019, the Special Court in Belgrade found the four former State Security (DB) officers guilty of the murder. The court stated that the immediate perpetrator of the murder was an unknown person.
Former DB chief Markovic was sentenced to 30 years for instigating aggravated murder.
Radonjic, former head of the DB in Belgrade, was also sentenced to 30 years for aggravated murder.
Former DB officers Ratko Romic and Miroslav Kurak were sentenced to 20 years each for aggravated murder.
SEE ALSO: Four Ex-State Security Officers Jailed In Serbia For 1999 Murder Of JournalistHowever, the Court of Appeals overturned that verdict in September 2020, saying 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 years each.
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.
The Belgrade Court of Appeals took up the appeals filed by the accused in December 2022 before making its latest ruling.
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.