One of the best known Belgrade journalists and a founder of the BETA news agency, Stevan Niksic, died on March 24 in Belgrade, at the age of 64.

Born in 1946 in Sremska Mitrovica, Niksic finished elementary and high school in Novi Sad, and graduated from the University of Novi Sad in 1969 with a degree in law. He obtained a postgraduate specialization in international law at the International

Law Academy in The Hague, and the title of master of legal sciences at Belgrade University.

In 1969, while still a student, he was elected to Republic Council of the Serbian Parliament in the first and only direct parliamentary elections after World War II and prior to the reintroduction of multi-party politics that allowed open nominations.

He was, at 23, the youngest MP in Serbian history to that date.

Niksic spent most of his reporting years at the NIN weekly, where he worked from 1973, first as a journalist, columnist and editor in the internal affairs department, and went on to work as an editor and columnist in the international department.

From 1998 to 2002, he was the editor in chief of the magazine.

He collaborated on and published a large number of articles and other pieces in newspapers and magazines in Novi Sad, Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana, and some of the most reputable newspapers and magazines in the U.S. (New Leader, New York), Germany (Die Zeit, Hamburg) and Portugal (Publico, Lisbon).

Niksic was one of the founders of BETA and the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia.

He published several books on the freedom of the press, the legal and political system in Yugoslavia, and the war in the Balkans.