Mother from Sonta's strange statement, father's anger that the baby wasn't buried - no punishment?

The mother from Sonta near Apatin, Sabrina N. (25), whose story about a baby left in a cesspit triggered a public outcry, was questioned yesterday by the prosecution. After this, the case was closed and the mother returned to the family home.

As confirmed for Telegraf, the autopsy discovered that the baby was a stillborn, which put an end to speculation that the child had lived for some time, and that the case is a crime.

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"She said during the questioning that she may have heard it cry, but the autopsy showed the lungs were not inflated and that the baby did not inhale air," Telegraf learned from a source close to the investigation, who pointed out that no mistake was possible there, and that the distressed mother in fac thought she had heard crying.

That was the reason for the prosecution to examine the case.

As it has been determined that the death was natural and that there were no elements of murder, the mother was released and the proceedings were dropped.

It was speculated that the death of the child occurred before the case went public on December 3, but only the father, Kristijan N., who subsequently reported the case, knew about it.

Photo: Facebook

"He was angry because the baby was not buried," we learned from the prosecution.

The case is now the responsibility of the Apatin Social Welfare Center, which will decide on the fate of the family. We also addressed the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs on this occasion, but they told us that the public is excluded and that they cannot provide any details.

The family of four with two children - sons aged 3 and 4 - recently lost another member. As had been revealed earlier, the third son died at the end of October while the woman was pregnant with the fourth child. The public in Serbia learned about the fate of the third child, who died a natural death due to a bowel disease.

The fourth child of Sabrina and Kristijan N. was found wrapped in a blanket left in a makeshift cesspit.

The law does not recognize stillborns

Since the child was not buried but left in a cesspit, the question arises of liability before the law for such a gesture. Although burial is regulated, penalties apply to local communities and organizations, not to individuals. When citizens are individually subject to the sanction, a loophole in the law is encountered. For a person to be dead in the eyes of the law it must first be born - alive. When it comes to stillborn children, things get complicated.

Lawyer Ivan Simic; Printscreen Happy TV

"Article 24, paragraph 1, item 3 of the Law on Burials and Cemeteries envisages money fines ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 dinars if burial is not provided for a deceased person - but it applies only to local communities or organizations, meaning, not to individual citizens. A citizen may be punished if they bury a deceased person outside a cemetery, with a fine of between 1,000 and 50,000 dinars. Neither of these two penalties are applicable (in this case) because the former cannot be applied to individual citizens, and the latter because it is highly questionable whether an newborn who is not born alive has the status of a deceased person, and also because it was not buried but left, something that is not strictly prescribed as a misdemeanor," lawyer Ivan Simic told Telegraf.rs.

In addition to the contentious status of stillborn children, he explained that the case was of particular gravity given that the mother had lost a child.

"First of all, it should be kept in mind that the newborn was not entered in the birth registry, and the fact that it was not born alive indicates that, unfortunately, it is not even recognized in legal traffic. The question is whether one can speak of a death at all. When such actions occur one cannot say that the public interest had not been violated in some way - but it should also be kept in mind that the consequences affecting the mother of the unborn child are so severe that the question is raised whether it's justified to conduct any procedure or mete out punishment," said Simic.

(B. Petrovic)