How the Service follows and listens
The trial for the murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija, in progress before the Special Court, reveals the mechanism of operation of the secret service and its role in past political assassinations in Serbia. The charges in the indictment against members of what was then the State Security Service (DB) for the Curuvija murder should serve as a warning and reminder of how dangerous the pattern of media lynching can be, again in this murder operating as both preparation and harbinger of what was to come.
According to the indictment, Slavko Curuvija was murdered over “public appearances in the country and abroad and criticizing the holders of political power, the ability to influence public opinion and the action of opposition social forces, in order to preserve the existing government.”
VIDEO: Reconstruction of surveillance and murder of Slavko Curuvija
The mechanism of security service operation in all political murders during the 1990s was the same – DB members continually followed, listened to and gathered information on the potential victim. Shortly preceding the murder, the chief would order the operatives in the field to halt the surveillance. Then the executioners would arrive on the scene. By all accounts, the person ordering the operatives to halt surveillance knew that a killing would follow, and also knew who the killer was.
The way this mechanism worked in the case of the Slavko Curuvija murder was revealed by Insajder in the serial on the work of security services, titled Confidential:
The trial for the murder of the journalist and owner of Dnevni Telegraf and the Evropljanin weekly began in June last year, 16 years after the crime was committed. A large number of witnesses questioned to date - former or current state security service employees, frequently testified that, due to the passage of time, they do not remember the details of Curuvija’s surveillance very well.
Former DB chief Radomir Markovic, head of the Belgrade DB center Milan Radonjic and Belgrade center member Ratko Romić were charged with Curuvija’s murder, while Milan Kurak, indicted as the direct perpetrator of the murder, is at large and being tried in absentia.
Radonjić and Romić have been in custody since their arrests in January 2014. Marković is serving a 40-year sentence in prison, while Kurak is on the run and on an international wanted list.
According to the indictment, Kurak murdered Curuvija and Romic was his accessory, pistol-whipping Branka Prpa, who was with Curuvija at the time, in the head. The key witness in the proceedings is erstwhile commander of the Special Operations Unit Milorad Ulemek “Legija,” after whose testimony the official probe of the accused was launched.