[JURIST] Two former Serbian senior secret service officials were arrested Tuesday under suspicion that they planned the 1999 killing [AP report] of anti-government journalist Slavko Curuvija. Police claim that former spy agency head Milan Radonjic and operations chief Ratko Romic were involved in the shooting death of the journalist outside his home in Belgrade on April 11, 1999, during the NATO bombing of Kosovo. Curuvija was known for his sharp criticism of the administration of then-president Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive], and his family and friends have accused Milosevic’s wife Mirjana Markovic [BBC profile] of ordering the assassination.

Relations between Serbia and Kosovo have been strained since the Kosovo War [JURIST news archive] of 1998-99, and the NATO bombing that followed it. In November Kosovo held its first local elections [JURIST report] since it seceded from Serbia in 2008. Serbia does not recognize the secession. In September 2012 a Serbian war crimes court convicted [JURIST report] 11 members of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) [JURIST news archive] for war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1999. Serbian General Ljubisa Dikovic [official profile, Serbian] brought a libel suit [JURIST report] in March 2012 against the head of a Serbian human rights group that claims he failed to prevent war crimes in Kosovo.