Rade Malobabic

Rade Malobabić (; died June 26, 1917) was a Serbian intelligence agent. He was best known for allegedly helping the Black Hand in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which initiated World War I.

Agram (Zagreb) Trials Rade Malobabić was one of the high-profile members of the 53 defendants tried for High Treason in Zagreb between 1907 and 1909. Rade was among 31 found guilty and sentenced to hard labour for an extended term. The subsequent appeal being successful and the parallel Friedjung Process proving the evidence against Malobabić and his fellow defendants to have been fabricated led to the state dropping the charges and releasing all 31 remaining accused in 1910.

Military career Malobabić was a Serbian military intelligence operative who was stationed in Austria leading up to World War I. He also worked with the Serbian deliberation group, the Black Hand, which was the group that was responsible for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Assassination of the Archduke

According to the final confession of Colonel Apis (which was extracted under torture and deception) Malobabić was hired by Apis to organize the assassination of the Archduke, and perform tasks such as smuggling weapons and providing information to other operatives that were a part of the killing mission. He is noteworthy as the only person accused of specific involvement in the assassinations of June 28, 1914, not to have been named by a single defendant nor by any of the counsel in the Sarajevo trial - indeed the only individual to ever link Malobabić to the murders is Apis and only then in his third and final statement on the matter 11 April 1917. In 1916 Malobabić broke after being tortured and accused Apis of plotting the whole scheme to assassinate Prince Alexander - he never admitted any involvement in Sarajevo.