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Trial of the "Audi of Death" driver: New expertise ordered

The Basic Court in Niš issued an order to conduct a commission expertise of Nemanja Stamenković (19) from Belgrade, accused of a serious accident on Mediana Boulevard in which Andrej Prenkljušaj (12) and Dejan Ilić (48) were killed, based on the circumstances of his mental state, maturity and neurological disorders complained of at the time of the accident.

 

The expertise will be entrusted to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, which will hire a neurologist and other specialists who will be needed.

Stamenkovic’s defense attorney, lawyer Saša Knežević, pointed out that the verdict without such psychiatric expertise would not be complete, bearing in mind that it is a younger adult and that only experts can assess the neurological problems he described.

According to them, the traffic police officers testified about the emotional and mental state of the defendant after the accident, saying that he cried and was scared, and that only experts can give a judgment about his behavior. Kneževic also said that according to court practice, verdicts without such expertise, when it comes to younger adults, are overturned.

OJT Deputy Vladimir Stanojević objected to this expertise, emphasizing that sanity is examined only when there is a suspicion of insanity, which is not the case here, and that it is incorrect that there is an obligation to determine the maturity of young adults, but that it is only a legal possibility.

– There is no data on the history of the disease that the defendant complains about, nor has he ever been to the doctor because of that disorder, and he mentions it for the first time during a car accident. I oppose the examination of sanity, bearing in mind that all traffic police described his behavior as typical for participants in such occasions – he pointed out.

One of the lawyers of the families of the victims, Goran Djordjević, also objected to such an expert opinion, saying that there was no doubt in the reduced or excluded sanity of the defendant, as well as that his behavior indicated a healthy person. The representative of the family of the injured boy, lawyer Bratislav Stojanović, was also against this kind of expertise, but the court still ordered him.

After a two-and-a-half-hour examination of traffic expert Dejan Bogićević by Stamenkovic’s defense, lawyer Stojanović requested a new traffic expertise to be entrusted to the traffic department of the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad.

– The expert did not make a computer animation of the traffic accident that is possible and which can be used to determine that the “Audi” was moving at a speed of 152 kilometers per hour. That is why it is necessary to do a new expertise, a commission one, which would be done by the traffic department of the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, where doctors of science sit – said Stojanović. His proposal will be decided by the court.

At the beginning of the trial, he said that determining the higher speed could change the qualification of the crime, which would mean that the defendant could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison, while according to the current qualification, the maximum sanction is eight years.

The existing expertise determined that the “Audi” was moving at a speed of “at least 131 kilometers per hour”, but not what the exact or maximum speed was at the time of the accident.

Expert Bogićević, answering the questions of the expert advisors of the defense, explained the position of the car from the moment of braking and turning to the side, until it ran into pedestrians. He protested because he had to answer the same questions several times, calling it “exhausting” the expert.

– At the time of the collision with the pedestrian child, the front part of the “Audi” was at an angle of direction towards the road. After that, the “Audi” continued with additional drifting of the rear part, so that after the collision with the adult pedestrian, it would be at an angle of 85 degrees in relation to the axis of the road. The traffic expert cannot comment on the manner of moving the “Audi” from the exit of the roundabout to the reaction by moving or turning, ie he can neither confirm nor deny that the driver performed some of the actions such as acceleration, deceleration, detour, overtaking or any other action because there is no material evidence for that in the case file – said expert witness Bogićević.

As “Blic” wrote, he told Stamenković in his defense that during the overtaking, an unknown vehicle headed in his direction, so he turned to travel in order to avoid an accident.

–It seemed to me that the vehicle jerked towards me, to the left, as if it was going to hit me. I got scared, squeezed the steering wheel with both hands and lowered my head. It is possible that I gave the gas at that moment in order to avoid a traffic accident, but I cannot confirm that with certainty. After that, I felt tingling in my neck and body muscles and I started to lose my orientation in space. Then I felt a noise in my ear and objects began to run before my eyes. The next thing I remember is that I got out of the vehicle because I needed air to recover – Stamenković told the court earlier.

Shocking words of the mother of the deceased Andrej

The mother of little Andrej, whom Stamenković cut down with an “Audi” and killed on the spot, said that it was very difficult to accept that the maximum punishment for a citizen of Belgrade was only eight years for the death of his child and one man.

© 2020 Law office Stojanović