Verdict for the murder of Ćuruvija overturned: "The accusation was overstepped by introducing an unknown person into the case"

The Court of Appeals announced today that it annulled the first-instance verdict for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija and sent it back to the first-instance court for a retrial, stating that it overstepped the charge and, by introducing an unknown person as the immediate perpetrator, changed the factual situation described in the indictment.

For their participation in the murder of Ćuruvija, which took place on April 11, 1999, the then head of the Department of State Security, Radomir Marković, the then head of the Belgrade center of the DB Milan Radonjić, as well as a member of the reserve squad of the DB Miroslav Kurak were sentenced to a total of 100 years in prison. DB operative Ratko Romić.

"According to the order of the Appellate Court, the first-instance verdict is refuted based on the appeals filed, due to a significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure, by pointing out that the first-instance court's verdict violated the objective and subjective identity of the indictment and overstepped the charge, thereby causing significant violations of the provisions of the criminal procedure, since the verdict incomprehensible, the reasons for the verdict are contradictory statements, as well as that the reasons for the facts that are the subject of proof are not stated in the verdict, and the reasons given are completely unclear and to a considerable extent contradictory, which is why it is not possible to examine the legality and regularity of the verdict," the decision of the Appellate Court stated.

As it was said, "in the specific case, the authorized prosecutor remained with the factual description from the indictment until the end of the main trial, and the first-instance court subsequently changed the factual description from the indictment by adding certain facts and circumstances to the factual description of the first-instance verdict which were not contained in the indictment".

"In this way, according to the order of the Appellate Court, the defendants were declared guilty of new facts and wounds, which the accusation does not contain and for which, during the proceedings, no evidence was presented. according to the finding of the first-instance court, participated in the act of committing the criminal act together with the defendants, as a direct executor, and by adding new actions in the districts of Radonjić, Kurak and Romić, the first-instance court, when it comes to the way the criminal act was committed, significantly changed the factual situation which, according to its own assessed, in relation to the factual situation described in the indictment," this court concluded.

At the same time, it was stated in the decision, the verdict "does not state any evidence on the basis of which the first-instance court would have established with undoubted certainty the presence of another person on the spot, namely the immediate perpetrator, nor on the basis of which evidence has it established that the unknown person achieved agreement on deprivation of life of the injured party, which is rightly pointed out by the appeal of the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime, which is why the correctness of the conclusion of the first-instance court cannot be examined in the appeal procedure, in that part".

At the same time, "by introducing an unknown person into the factual description of the act of the criminal act, in several places, in different segments, the sentence was made incomprehensible, because first of all it remains unclear whether in the specific case it is about one unknown person or several unknown persons, Is the same unknown person the orderer, the person with whom the defendants reach a prior agreement, and also the immediate perpetrator of the criminal act, or are they different unknown persons".

Also, "according to the order of the Appellate Court, the court of first instance in the sentence, and later in the explanation of the verdict, did not state at all how the defendants Kurak and Romić enabled the unknown person to commit this criminal offense, which makes their actions unclear and incomprehensible".

"This is because it is not clear from the sentence of the first-instance verdict and it remains unclear where the districts Romić and Kurak were at the time of the commission of the criminal offense against the victims, whether they were together or separated, it is still unclear in what way and by which action they enabled an unknown person to commit a criminal offense and thereby participated in the commission of this criminal offense as co-perpetrators," the decision says.

The appellate court, among other things, "finds that, based on the appeals, it is indicated that in the explanation of the verdict, sufficiently clear reasons were not given on the decisive facts on the basis of which the first-instance court established the existence of a prior agreement between all the defendants, and especially the agreement with the unknown person".

"In support of the fact that there was a significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure, and that there are no reasons for decisive facts, the fact that the first-instance court does not give reasons for the existence of a common intention on the part of the defendants, nor an agreement, nor does it state from which it concludes that the district of Radonjić , Kurak and Romić acted as executors," the Court of Appeal stated.

In the retrial, the decision adds, the first-instance court will remove the deficiencies and violations pointed out in this decision and will act on the objections of the Court of Appeal, and will properly present, analyze and evaluate the presented evidence, both individually and in connection with each other and in together with the defendants' defenses.

The first-instance court should also "invite the parties to propose the presentation of other evidence for which the need arises, after which it will make correct factual and legal conclusions and give clear, concrete and well-argued reasons for the same, which it will present and justify in a valid manner and make a proper decision and legal decision," the Court of Appeal announced.