These days, four years have passed since Ivanka Mićić (62) died near Loznica. And only these days did the trial of Đorđe Danojlić really begin, accused of hitting a woman who was walking with a car, leaving her to die by the side of the road and running away. The accused is in the courtroom, but the truth has begun to be buried and drowned among court records, numerous expert reports and analyses. Prosecution experts claim one thing, and defense experts completely different. Legally, the question is now which vehicle hit the woman. As if it is no longer important what the truth is, but whose experts will defend their opinions more strongly. And the opinions of experts in a corrupt and politically burdened society are more susceptible to influences than science... What will prevail
It will be a long trial. It took "only" four years for it to truly begin. Only the second hearing was held last week. The accused Đorđe Danojlić claims that he is not guilty and that he did not even drive the car that the indictment states that he participated in accidents.
Judge Dušan Dakić is familiar with the case to the smallest detail, he follows every word uttered in the courtroom and seems that it will be easy for him to get to the truth, but difficult to get to judicial justice.
Namely, for court cases of traffic accidents, experts are key. They are actually the ones who exchange opinions and arguments in the courtroom. The more dominant wins.
Each side hired its own experts. At first, while the case was still in Loznica, at the request of the local prosecutor's office, forensic medicine expert Ljubiša Božić, who also worked for the Serbian MUP at the time, and traffic expert Vladimir Đinić performed the expert examination. They concluded that the victim Ivanka Mićić could not have been hit by the "Volkswagen Bora" car driven by the accused. They claim that based on the arrangement of injuries and blows that the victim received, as well as on the basis of the damage to the vehicle, they are of the opinion that it was a much larger vehicle such as a jeep, truck, pick-up truck.
By the way, the "Volkswagen Bora" driven by the defendant Danojlić was also recorded by security cameras on the road leading from the accident site, right after the unfortunate woman died. Then it was noticed that there are visible damages on that car.
WHAT COLOR IS THE CAR?
The victim's family was not satisfied with Božić's and Đinić's expertise, so they hired a new forensic medicine expert, Ivica Milosavljević, who worked at the VMA. That expert determines that a vehicle like the "Volkswagen Bora" could have killed Ivanka Mićić, and he concludes this precisely on the basis of the injuries and blows the victim had on her body. However, that expert died in the meantime, but his findings still reached the prosecutor's office. Since the expert's findings were already completely opposite, the prosecutor calls prof. Dr. Đorđe Alimpijević to make a report in the field of forensic medicine. And Professor Alimpijević, also based on the injuries and marks on the victim, determined that the "Volkswagen Bora" could have been the type of vehicle that killed the woman on the road near the village of Tršić.
The defendant appeared in the courtroom with as many as three defense lawyers, one of whom is a well-known SNS official, Vladimir Đukanović. They hired and brought with them the traffic expert Milan Božović, and experts Božić and Đinić now represented the defense's point of view.
The defendant claims that he is not guilty. While he sat alone in the courtroom on the bench for the defendants and listened to the breaking of the rear-view mirror and the scattering of glass on the vehicle due to the force of the impact, he looked away and visibly reddened. His defense counsel and experts say that his "Volkswagen Bora" car could not possibly have killed the woman. They are self-confident until the judge asks them a question about some detail - then they look at each other, then stutter, but they remain convinced that it is not their client's car. Admittedly, the traffic expert could not remember the color of the car (dark blue) he was examining, but he kept repeating that "it is not the type of vehicle that killed the woman".
On the other hand, the expert Alimpijević does not rule it out and the judge found himself between a complete split. New super expert examinations have been ordered, which will be conducted in Novi Sad, at the Forensic Medicine of the Clinical Center and at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Traffic.
In the continuation of the trial, witnesses should also be heard. By the way, those who initially accused Danojlić have lost their memory in the meantime, so maybe it will come back to them before the judge...
CAN TRUTH AND JUSTICE SURVIVE IN SERBIA?
From the beginning, absurdities have followed the death of Ivanka Mićić near Tršić. The case was covered up from the moment the vehicle hit the unfortunate woman and that's why it attracted the attention of the entire public. Everyone got involved in the hiding, but also in the search for the suspect, from the local powerful to the President of the country, Aleksandar Vučić.
First, President Vučić informs the grieving family that the suspect has finally been arrested, and then a high-ranking official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Vladimir Đukanović, who is otherwise a close friend of the president, appears as the defender of the same suspect.
As "Vreme" already wrote, the name of the accused Đorđe Danojlić means nothing to the Serbian public. However, he is known in Loznica. Namely, he is the brother of the influential lawyer Biljana Borovčanin, the wife of Nenad Borovčanin, the president of the Boxing Federation of Serbia, who is considered a man close to the top of the government.
At first, the suspect was searched ineptly. Although the police and the prosecutor's office were aware of the footage from the security cameras from January 28, the owner of the "Volkswagen Boro" Danojlić was only on February 1, 2021. called to the police for an informative interview. And he was released. The man said that he had nothing to do with the case, and sometimes the police and the prosecution know how to take their word for it.
His car was not even confiscated at that time. The day after that informative interview, the police "find" his car in the parking lot of a store. The forensic technician only photographed the vehicle, in the dark, in the middle of the street, and after about fifteen minutes concluded that he did not see "anything suspicious". He did not notice either the rear-view mirror that was replaced, or the lack of a side molding, nor did he request an emergency technical inspection of the car. Then the car disappears again. A few days later, the police even announced a search for a "Volkswagen Boro" with a striking, shiny side molding. And as soon as the search was called, the car was found again, but in Belgrade, parked near the house of the suspect's sister, lawyer Biljana Borovčanin. According to the court documents, certain "modifications on the vehicle" were already observed at that time.
All those "I'm looking for you" games lasted almost a month. Sufficient time is left for various activities, if someone would like to, say, cover their tracks...
This accident also caused a split in police circles. The murdered Ivanka Mićić was the mother of a respected policewoman from Loznica. Colleagues tried to help her solve the case, the inspectors were later persecuted and replaced. Other police officers delayed the case: for example, they find a car, but they don't send it for examination... Well, that's how they progressed.
Because of this death on the road, citizens rebelled and protested. When Loznica was in full swing, and when it threatened that the police and citizens would go together in protests against the political and judicial powers, the call came.
The evening before the protest, the police officer and daughter of the murdered woman, Mirjana Mićić, was invited by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. They learned from him that Đorđe Danojlić had been arrested and that he had been detained for 48 hours. Then, the Ministry of Police informs the media and the public about the suspect's arrest. Danojlić was interrogated again and again does not admit to the crime and refuses to continue talking to the police about everything. But then he was detained. Admittedly, because of public upset.
The protest in front of the Prosecutor's Office was nevertheless held. The Minister of Justice, Maja Popović, also had to intervene, that is, talk to the prosecutors and demand an impartial investigation. Although part of the local judiciary first obstructed the case, the prosecutor drew up an indictment and demanded that the defendant Đorđe Danojlić be sentenced to a prison sentence of at least three years for the criminal offense of "serious offenses against traffic safety" and for the criminal offense of "failing to provide assistance to an injured person" in a traffic accident" to eight months in prison.
The trial is taking place in Novi Sad. The extremely dedicated judge Dušan Dakić is trying to get to the truth. But there are experts, party lawyers, fraternal, godfather and friendly relations of the defendant. Is this Serbia too small to ensure the truth, curled up in some corner of them all, to survive until the end of the trial and experience justice?
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
Who mentions the extraordinary elections when the rating of the party in power is falling, and according to all surveys, Vučić is not the most important political factor in the country, but the students?
The brutal beating of students and citizens in Novi Sad shows that the regime is not only ready to take revenge - it is actually carrying it out
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
The archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
See all
