In media

 

Closing arguments began at the trial of the Audi driver, who killed two people in a car accident in Nis.  The city’s basic public prosecutor is demanding a maximum sentence of eight years in prison and an extension of the driver’s detention, among other things due to the still great public disturbance.

 This procedure took the citizens of Niš to the streets at the very beginning of this year, after which the chief of the traffic police in that city was replaced.

Undoubtedly, said the basic public prosecutor Vladimir Stanojevic, that the driver Nemanja Stamenkovic, only 19 years old, was aware, sober and organized behavior when on January 4, at a speed of more than 130 kilometers per hour, in the middle of the settlement, he lost control,  over the Audi he drove, in what he said was a violent and arrogant manner.

Stanojevic reminded that the car, at such a high speed, climbed onto the bicycle path, and then the sidewalk on Mediana Boulevard, where it hit a twelve-year-old boy from Nis, who died on the spot, as well as the commissioner of the Sloga union in Nis, Dejan Ilic.  (45).

 “If he was moving at the allowed speed, the vehicle would have stopped 24 meters earlier, before the bicycle path and the place on the sidewalk where he hit pedestrians.  That was determined during the procedure, “said public prosecutor Vladimir Stanojevic.

 He adds that the accused Stamenković was not telling the truth when he pleaded guilty and his ears were ringing, and that is why he lost consciousness at the very moment of the accident.

 The cause, he repeated several times, is indisputably inadequate speed.

 “It has been indisputably proven that his health condition and maturity did not in any way affect the cause of the accident,” he pointed out and concluded that Stamenković’s neurological outbursts, which his defense spoke about, were “non-existent”.

 The lawyer of the injured, Oliver Injac, also pointed out the request for the maximum prison sentence, as well as for the costs of the trial, reminding that the defendant Stamenković, in addition to everything, is a professional driver by profession, that is, he went to high school for drivers.

 “He was fully aware when, immediately after the accident, instead of the police or the services, he called his parents and had private conversations,” said Injac.

Stamenkovic: I regret everything, I wish I could turn back time

 I am sorry and I regret that all this happened, said the accused driver Nemanja Stamenković.

I am very sorry and I wish I could turn back time, that nothing happened and that everyone is alive and well.  “I am really sorry that such a tragedy happened and I am asking the families for forgiveness,” he said at the trial.

 Victim’s mother: No one can understand my pain

 The mother of the deceased Andrej Prekljušaj, Aleksandra Kostadinović, also addressed the court panel. As she said, her husband also died three years ago, so she raised her dead child on her own.

 She said in her address that the pain she feels “cannot be understood by anyone.”

 “The only thing that comforts me is the thought that I will go to my child.  I ask the court to consider that, “said Aleksandra Kostadinović, who still encounters disbelief when she realizes that her son is gone forever.

 Defense attorney: The proceedings should be conducted by the courts, not the media

 The defense is requesting the lifting of the detention in custody of the driver Nemanja Stamenković, with the explanation that the information presented to the public about him, as he has said several times, is false.

 “There is no public harassment, it was constructed by the media and false announcements,” says Stamenković’s lawyer Sasa Knezevic, adding that there is no longer any justification for extending detention.

 There are a lot of lies told, due to which great tension and hysteria has been created, which extends throughout this entire procedure, said Sasa Knezevic, Nemanja Stamenkovic’s lawyer, in his closing remarks.

 He claims that this is primarily due to pressure from the media, not the public, but the media, which, as he says, themselves stated that the public is upset, although, he adds, today the basic public prosecutor reiterated that public harassment exists.

 “Criminal proceedings should be conducted by courts, not the media,” Knezevic repeated.

 In the part of the closing remarks, he analyzed the data from the media, especially from the beginning of the procedure, when the citizens stated that someone “went wild” around the scene of the accident with a similar car in the days before the accident.

 He also criticized the way in which it was reported, as well as the “leakage” of details from the investigation, which, as he said, were illegally presented, without it being difficult to determine who was responsible for that.

 The closing arguments of the defense attorney and the defendant began at 8:30 am, and numerous media representatives, lawyers and the public were present in the building of the Basic Court in Nis.

 It should be reminded that residents of Nis protested several times in January, demanding that the police protect people from arrogant drivers who “run wild” on Nis boulevards and that no one excludes them from traffic.

 Minister Aleksandar Vulin came to visit the Nis police more than once, without being accompanied by the media.  The car broke down on the chief of the traffic police in Nis.

 “The precedent regarding this trial in court practice is the fact that the expertise did not determine the maximum speed at which the car was moving, but the lowest possible – 130 kilometers per hour.  Our expertise showed that at the time of the accident, the Audi was going at a speed of 152 km / h “, reminded the legal team of Bratislav Stojanović, the lawyers of the injured parties in the procedure.

© 2020 Law office Stojanović