Appellate Court adopts prosecution request in Curuvija trial

The decision establishes that databases from the (telephone) base stations had been obtained in a lawful manner and can be used as evidence.

Mirjana Piljic, a spokeswoman of the Appellate Court, told this on Tuesday to Insajder.

This means that the first-instance court, which in April excluded this evidence at the request of the defense, will have to take them into account when establishing the facts and rendering the verdict.

The data is question was presented by the prosecution as evidence that the accused had been at the site of the murder of Curuvija, who was gunned down in Belgrade in 1999.

The president of the Commission for Investigations of the Murders of Journalists, Veran Matic, earlier told the weekly NIN in an interview that with their decisions, the Trial Chamber had effectively ruled to acquit the accused - former members of Serbia's state security agency (RDB).

Despite all the unusual facts and events that accompany the trial, the Judges' Association of Serbia and the Belgrade Bar Association have criticized Matic's statements.

Reacting to this criticism on Tuesday, the Commission issued a statement, signed by Matic, to point out that this body - set up by the government - has always been supportive of the independence of the court, that it always respected the presumption of innocence and never violated the presumption of innocence of any of the defendants.

"Trials are public precisely in order to enable for the democratic control of the public. Judicial power is independent and there is no control over it other than the control of the public. This is the reason why the public, not only can, but also has the duty to monitor what the court is doing, to create an opinion on this...