In 2013, Serbia established the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists to look into the deaths of a number of journalists in the wake of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and amid the Yugoslav wars.

International Press Institute (IPI) Contributor Tara Nissl recently spoke with Serbian journalist, Commission founder and IPI World Press Freedom Hero Veran Matić about the Commission’s work.

A transcript of their conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, appears below.

IPI: Would you say that Ćuruvija’s death triggered the formation of the Serbian Commission, and if so, why his death in particular?

Matić: I wouldn’t say that it was just this case that triggered the establishment of our Commission. Simply, I am a contemporary of my colleagues who were brutally murdered, and something had to be done about that. As every newly appointed coalition, government, newly inaugurated prime minister and newly elected president promised at the beginning of their term of office that they will find the killers, with no results to follow, the matrix was clear: there was no intention to resolve those murders.

Following the 2012 elections which brought the Serbian Progressive Party, once a partner to Milosevic’s party, to power, I had approached the then-new Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić with the idea of forming a commission that would bring together the investigative work of both journalists and government institutions toward solving these killings. Vučić, who became Prime Minister in April 2014, approved the idea and the Serbian Commission for investigating the killings of journalists was launched in February 2013.

IPI: In your opinion, why is the government willing to comply?

Matić: Those unresolved murders present a burden to every government. It is in its best interest to resolve those killings. The Balkans political landscape has changed, with Serbia becoming an independent republic in 2006, but these cases were never solved. Moreover, as the information minister at the time of Ćuruvija’s murder, Vučić might benefit from a show of public accountability. I thought that for him also finding out the killers and those who ordered those killings was the most constructive way of facing his own flawed past. Simply, in order to move forward, the government has to do its best to try to resolve those murders.

IPI: How would you respond to critics that say the government is deflecting responsibility by supporting the Commission?

Matić: This is quite unfounded criticism. The government cannot deflect responsibility by giving its support to the Commission. A responsible government will make all the efforts necessary in order to resolve those killings, without trying to avoid its accountability in the process. Unpunished crimes, especially this committed by state institutions, only call for new violence, threats and endangerment of the safety of journalists. It leaves deep scars in the lives of journalists in this country and it contributes to censorship and fear. Please see the case study video “Chronicles of Threats”.

IPI: How do you make sure that the journalist representatives on the Commission maintain their influence alongside the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Security Information Agency?

Matić: The Commission is made up of representatives from the journalism community, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Serbia’s national security body, the Security-Information Agency (BIA). It oversees mixed investigative teams comprised of police inspectors and representatives of security services for every murder case. It reviewed existing evidence, and conducted fresh investigations into unfollowed leads. The balance between civil and institutional involvement is a key factor behind the Commission’s success. So, the role of the media community representatives had proved to be crucial. The journalists involved have the will and skills to critically review and analyse previous work of authorities and advocate for new lines of investigation, while government can give access to investigative materials and take prosecutorial action. The Commission also communicates regularly with high levels of government.

IPI: What is your response to Aleksandar Vučić’s statement that the Serbian Government has provided all documentation to the Prosecutor’s office? Are you still concerned about the transparency of the secret service?

Matić: When it comes to secret services, I have always been distrustful when they say that they had presented all the evidence. Or that they have no evidence. We still work on the identification of possible documents that need to be provided. I am confident that we will be persistent enough in our efforts to get all the documents we need, and that this will help us in resolving all the cases we work on.

IPI: What are the Commission’s biggest achievements so far?

MATIC: The results after three years of Commission’s activities are compelling. In Ćuruvija’s case, four suspects have been charged. Three have been arrested, including a former national security chief. The fourth suspect is being sought outside the country. On June 1, 2015, the trial of four former security officers had begun before a Special Court in Belgrade. Some suspects have been identified in the other two cases (Milan Pantić and Dada Vujasinović). We expect to make some breakthroughs in the near future in those two cases.

IPI: Are you pursuing other cases besides Ćuruvija, Vujasinović and Pantić’s?

Matić: Yes, the Commission is also looking into the deaths of 16 media staffers from RTS — Serbia’s state broadcaster — who were killed during a NATO airstrike targeting its headquarters in 1999. This is a very complex issue, though. The executioner is a pilot of one of the NATO member countries. The people who decided to put a media company on the list of war targets should face trial, as well as those who issued the order to launch missiles and kill media workers. And also the people responsible in Serbia, who knew the building would be bombed and failed to evacuate it. NATO is refusing to cooperate in this case, so this makes it much difficult to proceed.

IPI: How do you foresee the case against NATO members?

Matić: In the case of the killing of RTS media staffers, it is highly important that their names be introduced on the list of killed media workers that CPJ is forming. Up till now, our colleagues from Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had refused to put them on the list. This is important in a symbolic way, so that they are recognized as victims rather than parts of military machinery as was suggested. Furthermore, additional hearings will be conducted of the people involved that were not investigated earlier in case of indictment of the former director of RTS that was sentenced to 10 year imprisonment. For the time being, we have no mechanisms to force NATO to be more cooperative. It is possible that we will consider the possibility of gathering certain information through investigative journalism, or in some similar way, reaching the data that will reveal who made decision to target media house and with what rationale, as well as who executed it and fired missiles that killed our colleagues…

IPI: Are there any future plans for the Commission?

Matić: The Commission works intensely on the case of Milan Pantić. This is rather voluminous work as it called for analysing large number of documents that previous investigations had conducted (even seven work groups had worked on this case). Prosecutor’s Office needs to be involved much more in the whole process in order to provide testimonies of all potential protected witnesses and associates….

Our Commission assists the work of a similar commission established in Montenegro. Also, I had initiated the establishment of International Commission on the territory of Kosovo. Six Serbian journalists and media workers had been missing in the period from 1998 to 2002, and there is no information on what happened to them, along with the killings of three Albanian journalists….

There are lots of threats and unsolved cases of violence towards journalists in Serbia. This will also become the scope of work of the Commission as those cases are not resolved at all or the procedure takes a long time and is too sluggish, so in this way, the violence is not prevented but encouraged….

On the global level, we strongly support the initiative of Reporters Without Borders to establish [as an] institution [a] Special Rapporteur to the U.N. Secretary General for the security of journalists, as well as all the actions taken with the aim of fighting impunity done by UNESCO, CPJ and the U.N., respectively.