Acquittal and reduced sentence for the accident in Lucani

By the final judgment of the Appellate Court in Kragujevac, the factory manager "Milan Blagojević - Namenska" in Lučani, Vladimir Lončarević was acquitted, and his colleague Tomo Stojić was sentenced to two years in prison for a fire in that factory in 2017, when workers Milojko Ignjatović and Milomir Milivojević died.

This put an end to the court process, which started in 2019 in the Basic Court in Ivanjica, when the first-instance verdict sentenced two managers of "Namenska" in Lučani to three years in prison each.

The judge announced that Tom Stojić's sentence was changed to two years, because the court concluded that the crime he was charged with was "committed out of negligence".

The Milivojević family, which was supported by a group of Kragujevac citizens in front of the Palace of Justice, as well as the family's lawyers, are dissatisfied with the verdict and, as they say, with the favorable attitude of the Court of Appeal in Kragujevac.

Arrogance and disregard for regulations

The father of the victim Milomir, Milovan Milivojević resignedly states that he has lost the battle he has been fighting since the beginning of the trial.

"I know that my son is not guilty, but here... Dad was unable to save him, nor to prove that he was killed by his irresponsibility, arrogance, and disobeying regulations," says Milivojević.

As he says, he hopes that his son is the last victim in that factory, and he sees the verdict as a "mirror of the system and judiciary" in Serbia.

"To put it mildly, a bad ending to this whole story. After this, all possible appeals, whether it was a request for protection of legality by the prosecutor to the Supreme Court or Strasbourg, all this does not change the fact that these verdicts are final and that is the end of the story," commented Vladimir Todorić, the lawyer of the Milivojević family, on the verdict.

One defendant died.

In a fire in a dedicated factory in Lučani, on July 14, 2017, worker Milojko Ignjatović died on the spot, and his colleague Milomir Milivojević suffered serious injuries from which he died two weeks later at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade.

The trial, which began in 2019, was repeatedly interrupted, postponed and returned to the Basic Court for retrial.

Previously, the Basic Court in Ivanjica sentenced Vladimir Lončarević and Toma Stojić, the managers of the factory "Milan Blagoejvić - Namenska" in Lučani, to prison terms of three years each, as being responsible for the death of two factory workers.

Among the defendants was the director of the factory, Radoš Milovanović, who died at the end of April 2023, so the proceedings were suspended.

Given that appeals were filed against the first-instance verdict of the Basic Court in Ivanjica, the case was taken over by the Court of Appeal in Kragujevac, where the court process ended today.