Belgrade, Sept. 8, (dpa/GNA) – An appeals court in Serbia has overturned four convictions linked to the 1999 murder of newspaper publisher Slavko Curuvija and ordered a retrial, the internet news portal danas.rs reported late Monday.
Serbia’s former secret service chief Rade Markovic and a subordinate had been convicted last year of instigating the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Two other men were convicted of carrying out the murder and were each jailed for 20 years.
The court ruled that the rulings from April 2019 went beyond the indictment and were not based on evidence.
Curuvija founded the Dnevni Telegraf, the first independent daily newspaper in post-communist Serbia in the 1990s.
He stood out as a sharp critic of then-president Slobodan Milosevic, who involved Serbia in wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during his heavy-handed 12-year rule.
GNA