'Nacional' Editor Slates Pukanic Verdict in Belgrade

Berislav Jelinic, editor-in-chief of Nacional and former colleague of Nacional's founder and editor Ivo Pukanic, expressed deep dissatisfaction with a verdict of a Belgrade court on Monday on Pukanic's killing.

The former editor was killed along with a co-worker, Niko Franjic, by a car bomb in Zagreb in October 2008.

The real executors of the crime had been "flushed down the drain" and the ruling seemed designed to let "the people who gave the orders for the assassination to sleep peacefully", Jelinic claimed to BIRN.

Confirming the earlier judgment of a lower court, the court in Belgrade jailed Zeljko Milovanovic for 40 years while acquitting Sreten Jocic, alias Joca Amsterdam, and Slobodan Djurovic. The court ordered a retrial for Miljenko Kuzmanovic.

"I am dissatisfied with this de facto acquittal. With the same amount of evidence, the Belgrade court has passed a different verdict to the one in Zagreb," Jelinic added.

He was referring to a Croatian Supreme Court verdict in February 2013, which said Jocic gave a team of assassins 1.5 million euro to carry out the assassination.

Djurovic was sentenced to 23 years in jail. Milovanovic received a sentence of 40 years, passed in absentia. Robert Matanic as the leader of the unit of assassins, was jailed for 35 years.

Jelinic said the Belgrade court had clearly overlooked the role of Jocic and Djurovic in planning the assassination.

"An inside witness who revealed the whole plot to kill Pukanic and a series of clues and evidence showed the direct line of organizing the assassination, but the Belgrade court showed extreme delicacy in passing a final judgment," he said.

Jelinic again accused Jocic and Djurovic of being the main organizers...

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