Slavko ĆURUVIJA

Image Credit: Medija centar Beograd/WikkiCommons

In a ruling issued in October 2025 but only made public in January 2026, Serbia’s Supreme Court ruled that the decision in February 2024 by the Belgrade Court of Appeal to overturn guilty verdicts against four men twice convicted of the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, violated provisions of criminal procedure. The Supreme Court ruled that major pieces of evidence provided by key witnesses in the trial had not been properly assessed by the Court of Appeal ahead of the judgement, which it said benefited the defendants. The Supreme Court’s ruling, which cannot lead to the defendants being found guilty of Ćuruvija’s murder, prompted Ćuruvija’s daughter to seek a review by Serbia’s Constitutional Court of certain provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, including one that excludes the possibility of appealing against an acquittal rendered at second instance.  

 Journalist, editor, and publisher Slavko Ćuruvija, an outspoken critic of former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, was shot and killed outside his house in Belgrade on 11 April 1999. Four former State Security Directorate (RDB) officers were twice convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, but both times their convictions were overturned on appeal (see Case List 2025). PEN International condemned the decision as sending a dangerous signal that attacks against writers and journalists in Serbia would go unpunished. 

Slavko Ćuruvija, born on 9 August 1949, was the owner of Serbia’s first private daily newspaper Dnevni Telegraf and the weekly magazine Evropljanin. His book Ibeovac (1990) is based on his interviews with Vladimir ‘Vlado’ Dapčević, a former political dissident and prisoner.