Former employees of Serbia’s special services were acquitted on Friday in the case of the murder of journalist Slavko Churuvia after almost 25 years of trial, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade announced, reports AFP.

Slavko Churuvia, owner and editor-in-chief of two independent newspapers, was one of the most influential critics in Serbia in the 1990s.

Killed for publicly criticizing Slobodan Milosevic’s regime

On April 11, 1999, he was shot 13 times outside his home in Belgrade. At the time, Serbia was being bombed by NATO, an operation launched in response to the Milosevic regime’s brutal suppression of the Kosovo Albanian uprising for independence.

Days before his murder, pro-government media called the 49-year-old journalist a “traitor” for asking NATO to bomb targets in Serbia.

Former intelligence chief Radomir Markovych and another high-ranking official Milan Radonych were sentenced to 30 years in prison. Two other high-ranking employees of the security services, Ratko Romich and Myroslav Kurak, were sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The prosecution and defense appealed.

“In the absence of direct and indirect evidence that reliably confirms the involvement of the defendants Markovych, Radonych, Kurak and Romych,” the appeals court announced their acquittal.

Radomir Markovic is already serving a 40-year sentence for the murder of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic and four other opposition political leaders in the 1990s.

The state is unable to confront the dark side of its special services

This is the first final sentence in Serbia for the murder of a journalist: there is still no judicial epilogue for the murders of journalists Milan Pantic, killed in 2001, and Dada Vujasinovic, killed in 1994.

This decision “terribly worries the family, friends, colleagues and fans of this journalist, who was killed for publicly criticizing Slobodan Milosevic’s regime,” the Slavko Churuvia Foundation responded.

“This is a very clear signal that the state is unable to confront the darkest side of its secret services from the 1990s and that they still have a huge influence on justice and political life in Serbia,” the foundation added.

“I am shocked by this scandalous verdict,” the murdered journalist’s daughter told the N1 news site. “This is proof that the dark forces of the ’90s still rule this country.”

The acquittal “is a major blow to the fight against impunity for crimes committed against journalists in the Balkans,” said Pavol Salai, the Balkan representative of the NGO Reporters Without Borders.

“It’s a sad day for journalism,” Christopher Gill, the US ambassador to Serbia, reacted to X.

“I work because I want this country to be organized in such a way that publishers and journalists can freely create their own newspapers, that these newspapers can be freely sold and that citizens can freely read them,” Slavko Churuvia said shortly before his death.

In 2023, Serbia was ranked 91 out of 180 countries in the press freedom rating by Reporters Without Borders.