The International Press Institute (IPI) today expresses alarm over the ruling of the Supreme Court in Serbia identifying serious legal shortcomings in the decision which overturned guilty verdicts over the killing of Serbian editor and publisher Slavko Ćuruvija, and regrets that the prospect of justice remains painfully elusive.
Earlier this week it emerged that the Supreme Court had ruled that the decision in 2024 by the Belgrade Court of Appeal to overturn guilty verdicts against four men previously convicted of participating in the killing Ćuruvija was reached despite significant violations of the provisions of criminal procedure.
Crucially, the Supreme Court ruled that major pieces of evidence provided by key witnesses in the Ćuruvija trial had not been properly assessed by the court ahead of the new judgement, which it said benefited the defendants.
This ruling partially upheld the challenge filed regarding the verdict by the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office. While the Supreme Court reached this judgement in October 2025, it was only reported and made public in Serbia this week.
While the ruling undermines elements of the Court of Appeal’s verdict, IPI notes that it does not overturn or alter the final instance verdict, which is conclusive. The result is that the murder case remains in a state of total impunity 27 years later.
Ćuruvija, a respected editor and publisher, was shot dead in front of his home in Belgrade in 1999. In the days leading up to his broad-daylight killing, members of the State Security Service had kept him under surveillance.
Twenty years later, four former state security officers were sentenced to a combined 100 years in prison for the murder. A 2021 retrial confirmed the guilty verdicts. However, in February 2024, the Belgrade Court of Appeal reversed course, acquitting the men of the murder charges.
At the time, IPI said the overturning of the verdicts represented an abysmal failure of the rule of law and dealt a devastating blow to media freedom and the fight against impunity for the murder of journalists in Serbia.
The latest ruling by the Supreme Court now shines additional spotlight on serious failings of the criminal justice system in this case, for which answers are needed.
The ruling also partially strengthens the legal case of the Slavko Curuvija Foundation, which has been sued for defamation by two of the four acquitted officers for alleged damage to their honour over their comments about the quashing of the convictions.
Twenty-seven years have now passed since Curuvija was murdered. IPI remains committed to the fight for justice and expresses our continued solidarity with Curuvija’s family.
More of IPI’s advocacy and press freedom work on Serbia
This statement by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.
