His Excellency Slobodan Milosevic
President of Yugoslavia
Belgrade
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Vienna, 12 April 1999

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI) strongly condemns the killing of a prominent publisher, Slavko Curuvija, in Belgrade.

We are informed that unidentified gunmen shot and killed Mr. Curuvija, the owner of an independent daily newspaper, Dnevni Telegraf, and the news magazine Evropljanin, outside his apartment as he returned home from an Easter lunch with his wife, the historian Branka Prpa, on Sunday, 11 April. Mrs. Prpa told the police that two gunmen fired several bullets into Curuvija’s back. They then pistol-whipped her, before firing more bullets into Curuvija’s head.

Last year, following the introduction in October of Serbia’s draconian Law on Public Information, Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin were heavily fined and then banned, although Mr. Curuvija managed to keep publishing by registering his operations in Montenegro. Last month, Mr. Curuvija and two of his reporters were convicted of criminal defamation and sentenced by a Belgrade court to five months in prison for publishing an article which suggested that Deputy Prime Minster Milovan Bojic was linked to the killing of a medical doctor. Mr. Curuvija was awaiting the results of his appeal.

IPI; the global network of editors and media executives, condemns this heinous crime and urges you to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. We further urge you to take all possible steps to ensure the safety of independent journalists working in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director