Detention extended to Radonjic, Romic for two months

BELGRADE - The Appellate Court in Belgrade extended for two months the detention of two former members of the state security service, Milan Radonjic and Ratko Romic, suspected of killing journalist Slavko Curuvija in Belgrade on April 11, 1999.

They were arrested on January 13, when the Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office initiated an investigation against them and the then head of the state security service Radomic Markovic, and another member of the service Miroslav Kurak.

Markovic is serving a 40-year prison sentence in Pozarevac for the murder of Ivan Stambolic on August 25, 2000, and four members of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) in an attempt at assassination of SPO leader Vuk Draskovic on the Ibar highway in 1999. An international warrant has been issued for Kurak.

Organized Crime Prosecutor Miljko Radisavljevic said on Thursday that the probe is nearing the end, after which an indictment will be raised.

Radonjic and Romic are being tried at the High Court in Belgrade for aiding and abetting the attempted murder of Draskovic in Budva in 2000. In the first-instance proceedings, they were sentenced to eight and seven years in prison, but the judgment was quashed and a re-trial ordered.

The Appellate Court said in a release that the detention could last until June 13 at the latest.

Curuvija, owner and editor-in-chief of Dnevni Telegraf, was killed on Easter 1999 at the peak of the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in front of the building, in which premises of the daily's advertising department and his apartment were located.

At the time, the coalition comprising the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), the Yugoslav Left (JUL) and the Socialist Party of Serbia...