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The Basic Court in Nis questioned two minors as witnesses of the accident on January 4 on the Boulevard of Mediana in Nis, who made variating claims regarding the circumstances that preceded the killing of the two pedestrians. One girl says that Nemanja Stamenković drove normally, the other remembers that he overtook other vehicles more rudely. Defendant’s attorney said that he believes that all passengers in the vehicle had the same psychological feeling and that they did not have conflicting statements.
The second hearing in the procedure against the driver Nemanja Stamenković (20), who lost control of the Audi on Bulevar Mediana in Niš on January 4 and killed two pedestrians, has ended.
“He overtook, he did it a little rougher and more aggressively, doing it faster and abruptly,” said one of them.
She did not evaluate the speed “because she is not a driver”, but she thinks “that he drove a little faster”. She said that during the ride, she told Nemanja to “slow down”, she does not remember when exactly.
When asked by the judge if she noticed any other vehicle parallel in the lane in which they were, she said she did not remember anything characteristic. He overtook, said the first witness, “before Stop Shop”, and she did not say whether he did it after.
This question has to do with the testimony of the accused driver from the first hearing, which was held in March, when Nemanja Stamenković said that he got sick when he was overtaking a car in the next lane, because he was most likely scared, because it seemed to him that the alleged car did not holding it’s lane.
Another underage girl said she saw a car in the right lane. Giving testimony, she said that she did not hear that the other girl in the Audi warned Stamenković to slow down.
“Nemanja drove quite normally, he respected all the crossings and traffic lights,” said another girl from the car on the evening of the accident.
The lawyer of the injured parties reprimanded the court for suggestively examining the first witness. One of the lawyers said that the other witness, who said that Stamenković drove properly, was selectively testifying in favor of the defendant.
It should be reminded that, according to the indictment, at the time of the accident, the speed was at least 131 kilometers per hour.
Gabriela Ilic, the daughter of one of the victims, accused the defense of using all means to avoid guilt.
“We have a double murder here and we ask that it be treated exactly like that, at a speed of 150 kilometers per hour,” she said.
The testimony of the police officers from the investigation is also demanded
Traffic expert Dejan Bogićević stated before the court panel that he remained with the finding that the vehicle was moving at a speed of at least 131 kilometers per hour, but he could not say what the maximum speed of the vehicle was.
He said that he could not perform a computer simulation of the traffic accident because he lacked many parameters.
“One pedestrian was moved from the place where he fell after the impact, and the child first hit the metal fence, which changed the direction of his movement, which made it impossible for me to carry out this procedure,” Bogicevic said.
According to him, there is no doubt that the vehicle crossed to the sidewalk, the pedestrian path and then to the grass surface, but he could not comment on the reasons why it landed on the road.
The lawyer of the injured parties, Goran Djordjevic, stated that in order to establish the truth, it is not necessary to determine either the minimum or the maximum possible speed, but the exact speed at which the vehicle was moving at the time of the accident.
At the very beginning of today’s main trial, the prosecutor asked for the testimony of the police officers from the scene. These are Branimir Jovanović and Sara Lazarević, in order to testify about the defendant’s behavior at the time of the accident.
The defense believes that all police officers who were at the scene of the accident on the evening and night of the accident should be questioned, to which the prosecutor said that the goal was to call two members of the MUP to get a “picture” of the driver’s behavior at the time of the accident because they were with him in the first moments after the accident.
The reason why they are demanding the two of them is that the defense of the defendant requires an expertise in sanity.
The injured parties believe that the defendant did not have an orientation disorder and similar syndromes at the time he caused the accident. Some lawyers oppose that expertise.