Kurak

The main trial was opened in the proceedings against four former employees of the State Security Agency who were sentenced by the first-instance verdict to a total of 100 years in prison for participating in the murder of journalist and owner of "Dnevni Telegraf" Slavko uruvija in 1999.

Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday found four former Serbian state security employees guilty after a retrial of the murder in 1999 of journalist and editor Slavko Curuvija, who was known for his opposition to the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

"When I came to [daily newspaper] Borba in 1990, he was a reporter and political analyst, and known for writing a couple of pamphlets, one of which I remember was about the people from Goli Otok [political prison in Socialist Yugoslavia]," Gunjic recalled.

The Chairman of Serbia's Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists during Slobodan Milosevic's regime, Veran Matic, told BIRN that investigators still face grave risks doing their job.

Investigative website Insajder is reporting, citing other media, that Kurak had been living and working for years in Tanzania.

The Interior Ministry (MUP) told Insajder that they sent a request to locate and arrest Kurak to the General Secretariat of Interpol, as well as their offices in Tanzania and Ethiopia.

The president of the Commission Investigating Murders of Journalists told Cenzolovka that he had a strong impression the trial chamber has led the process as if he did not want to do it, or was forced in advance to pass an acquittal decision.

Milan Radonjic and Ratko Romic, accused for the killing of journalist Slavko Curuvija, have been released to house arrest.

Reacting to this, Veran Matic, chairman of the Commission Investigating Murders of Journalists, said he was "surprised with the strange decision, especially as the fourth accused in the case, Miroslav Kurak, is still on the run."

Historian Branka Prpa on Tuesday told the Special Court in Belgrade that Miroslav Kurak "does not look like the person who shot Slavko Curuvija."

Prpa, Curuvija's common-law wife, was with the publisher and journalist when he was shot and killed in Belgrade in April 1999.