After three years, the trial of the driver who killed a woman not far from Loznica and ran away began. The deceased Ivanka Mićić was the mother of a policewoman, but... Obstruction does not choose. Cover-ups are what the relatives of the deceased have been experiencing since the beginning of the accident and the investigation. They are fighting for a grain of justice, against local powerful people and a disputed judiciary, with the help of lawyers, the media, billboards, protests... The news about the arrest of the suspected driver was not reported to them by the police, nor the prosecutor, but by the President of the State of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. And justice began to appear. But... Vladimir Đukanović, an official of the SNS, the ruling party, became one of the defendant's lawyers. Police officers who tried to investigate the case were fired or replaced. The weekly "Vreme" reveals that even doctor Branislav Nestorović and his "knights and dragons" rebelled against the move of the family of the deceased woman. Then the whole case moved to the courtroom. However, due to the close relationship between the defendant's family and the judges in Loznica, the proceedings have not even started properly, and justice is no longer in sight.
It was a cold evening on January 28, 2021, when Ivanka Mićić (62) was returning from a walk in the village of Voćnjak. This mother of two daughters and grandmother of four grandchildren walked lightly on the right side of the road, like most of the locals when they went out for fresh air on quiet village evenings. Around 19 hours and 40 minutes, in the same direction as Ivanka, from the direction of Loznica towards Tršić, the driver of a Volkswagen car was also moving. He was in a hurry somewhere, and according to security camera footage, for unspecified reasons, he swerved, i.e. crossed into the opposite lane on the road. At one point, Ivanka as a pedestrian and the driver of a dark blue Volkswagen found themselves together in Vuje Matića Street. Opposite number 26, according to the indictment, the car driver Đorđe Danojlić hit Ivanka Mićić with all his force.
According to the reconstruction, the woman's body was first hit by the front, right headlight, Ivanka loses the ground under her feet, is in the air, then falls on the hood, then on the windshield, the rear-view mirror of the car breaks, and the victim once again flies through the air to the ground. With her body and head crushed, she fell on the edge of the road. Her blood slowly began to seep out onto the asphalt. The Volkswagen driver didn't even stop. He hit the gas and ran off into the darkness.
Ivanka was alone, she lived for a few more minutes. There was no one around her. Mortally injured and abandoned. Until the scream of a neighbor who saw a curled body by the side of the road broke through the village, it was dark and cold, only warm blood glistened. According to eyewitnesses, the unfortunate woman was motionless until the ambulance arrived. Resuscitation failed. The driver fled. He hid for weeks, and although he was discovered and arrested, he has been avoiding justice for years.
THE BLOODY TRAIL OF THE COVER-UP
At the same moment when Ivanka Mićić's heart stopped beating, the obstruction of the case began. The police failed to conduct a breathalyzer test, analyze blood or investigate whether he was drugged on the driver who fled the scene of the crime. From the morgue to the cemetery, the death certificate of the deceased woman was lost, the local hospital allegedly could not issue a duplicate because they did not keep the certificate anywhere. As the family members told "Vreme", they managed to get that document after numerous vicissitudes and emergencies only from the autopsy from Belgrade, who sent the confirmation to the MUP of Serbia and which was forwarded to the police station in Loznica.
Although there were security camera recordings, Volkswagen owner Đorđe Danojlić was called to the police for an informational interview only on February 1, 2021. The name of Đorđe Danojlić means nothing to the Serbian public. However, in Loznica he is known as a member of a family of local powerful people. Namely, Đorđe is the brother of the influential lawyer Biljana, who is the wife of Nenad Borovčanin, the president of the Boxing Federation of Serbia, a man who is considered close to the top of the government.
During the interrogation, Danojlić said that he knew nothing about the traffic accident and that he had nothing to do with it, and that the car was at his sister Biljana's.
"On January 28, 2021, in the evening hours, I was with my wife at home and she can confirm that," the police report states.
The police then do not confiscate Danojlić's car. It wasn't until a day later that the police found 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 issued a search warrant for a Volkswagen 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. As stated in the court documents, certain "modifications on the vehicle" were already observed at that time.
photo: private archive...and a photo from the workplace before he got into the car
The car is then examined by experts for days, and the police decide to interrogate, as stated in the investigation documentation, Đorđe Danojlić's friend who lives near the scene of the crime.
"On January 28, 1, Đorđe had a party where he got drunk at the company Elekstrodistribucija Loznice, where he is employed," she says. "He told me that he was on his way to see me, to which I told him that I didn't want to see him drunk and not to come."
According to the story of the interviewed woman, Danojlić still went towards her, she then noticed the police rotation at the scene of the traffic accident, and the defendant did not appear at the meeting and became unavailable. She told the police that they did not hear from each other until the next day and that the defendant avoided talking about the traffic accident.
in which Ivanka Mićić died:
"He changed the subject and sent me answers in the form of emoticons, smileys, as if he was shocked... From January 28, I noticed that Đorđe's behavior changed a lot, he was constantly nervous..." it is stated in the documents of the court files. which the Prosecutor's Office also initially avoided doing, revealed the photographs taken before the traffic accident. The photo shows the Elektrodistribucija office where the defendant works and beer bottles on the table. The defendant then took a photo of himself in the cafe he stopped by after work.
All this was not enough for the Prosecutor's Office. And in the following days, Đorđe Danojlić walks in Loznica. He has plenty of time to influence the witnesses. The investigation is in place. And in the city, stories are getting louder about the fact that the defendant's sister, lawyer Biljana, and her husband, politician, boxer, official Nenad Borovčanin, are closely connected by friendship and godfather ties to most of the prosecutors and judges in that area.
WHEN THE PRESIDENT CALLS
The family of the murdered woman writes to the executive and legislative authorities in Belgrade, asks for help, and invites citizens to protest in front of the Prosecutor's Office in Loznica. There is also a riot among the police because they cannot even help a colleague whose mother was killed. Due to the great revolt, the media's interest in the whole case also increased.
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. The Ministry of Internal Affairs then 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 talk to the police about everything. He emphasizes that he is exposed to media pressure and that is why he was arrested.
The protest in front of the Prosecutor's Office was nevertheless held, the center of the small town was filled by numerous citizens, they were loud, crying "A little justice for us too". On the same day, Minister of Justice Maja Popović is coming to Loznica. The minister talks to the prosecutors, demands an impartial investigation in front of the journalists and orders the Appellate Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad to supervise the entire case. After that, Danojlić is ordered to be detained for up to 30 days due to public agitation, and the prosecutor informs the family of the deceased about the expert reports and everything seems to be "the same law for all".
The dust has settled. Not even 30 days had passed, and Đorđe Danojlić was released from custody. Everything becomes difficult again. One of the defenders of the accused Danojlović is the high-ranking official of the Serbian Progressive Party, Vladimir Đukanović. The inspectors who stood up for uncovering the case are demoted, persecuted, and even their family members suffer threats. There is silence in the media.
In the indictment, the prosecutor demands 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 a person injured in a traffic accident" to eight months in prison.
Three years after Vučić's invitation, the first hearing was scheduled and the trial began. The family of the deceased says that the only thing that would restore their hope for justice would be if the entire trial was moved from Loznica, that is, the territory of Šabac, far from the fraternal, godfather and friendship ties of the defendant's family.
And Nestorović's "Dragons" against the billboard for justice for the dead Ivanka
photo: uns...
The family of the deceased Ivanka Mićić, whose killer fled the scene of the traffic accident, wonders if they will be able to get justice in the courtroom against the local powerful after all, when even their freedom of expression was denied on a street billboard in Loznica by controversial politicians, analysts and conspiracy theorists from Belgrade, Dr. Branimir Nestorović and Saša Borojević.
Namely, after the short detention of the defendant Đorđe Danojlić, the invitation of President Vučić and the protest in Loznica, the whole case fell silent. The investigation was back on track. The dead Ivanka Mićić was going into oblivion. She was remembered by her family and neighbors who, as they say for "Vreme", cannot forget the image of her small and crushed body in the cold night, left to slowly die by the side of the country road, in a pool of blood.
The family does not give up the fight. They say that they owe so much to their wife, mother, grandmother and mother-in-law, who devoted her whole life and attention to them. On the eve of the anniversary of her death in 2022, they tried to rent billboards with the image of the deceased and the message "Are you sleeping peacefully, murderer?"
One company immediately rejected them. Unofficially, the owner of the billboard did not want to hold a grudge against local powerful people connected to the top of the state government. Officially, they did not even respond to the family. However, one of the owners of the electronic billboards took the plunge and allowed them to post. This was followed by the answer of the powerful. After a few days, several inspections and the first threats arrive at the billboard owner's company. The ban on billboards was requested by the then newly appointed Association for the Protection and Improvement of the Position of Children "Knights of the Order of the Dragon". That association was rebranded at the end of December 2021, from a previously existing one, by Professor Dr. Branimir Nestorović, now a politician and MP, and Saša Borojević, a controversial analyst on the regime's media.
Nestorović's "Dragons" demanded from the inspectorate to immediately order the removal of the billboard because, among other things, they stated in the memo "... it is certainly not a legitimate way to express one's protest...".
In the same letter, "Dragons" praise the work of the prosecutor's office and emphasize that they are trying to protect it from pressure. According to the content of the letter, it seems that the Nestorović and Borojević Association is really, really upset by the photograph of the dead Ivanka from Loznica, and in the email they refer to the Constitution to numerous articles of the Law. In all that writing, they also decided to explain to the inspectors that "the procedure (about the deceased) was raised to the highest level".
The billboard has been taken down. This was done by the owner of the billboard after the approval of the family, who did not want the private person to suffer further persecution.
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