Will Danka's killers go free if police don't find her body: Lawyer reveals 6 key points

The president of the Center for Renewal of International Law, Goran Petronijevic, said today regarding the murder of 2-year-old girl Danka Ilic from Bor, that it is possible to determine what happened using other methods such as testimonies, material traces, DNA analysis, traces of blood, traces on the car and the road, even if the girl's body is not found.

He stressed that the strongest evidence would be finding the body and determining the cause of death.

"When it comes to proving (a crime took place), 'no body - no act' is complete nonsense. Today, the techniques and forensics have advanced so much that some things can be established on the basis of satellite images, DNA analysis, traces of hair...", he told Tanjug.

Petronijevic believes that in the case of Danka Ilic, a big mistake was made when the media assumed the role of investigative authorities, the police, the prosecution and all those who are legally authorized and professionally trained to do that part of the job.

"I'm not against the media being informed about what's happening, that's one of the obligations of investigative bodies, but I'm against it being done uncritically and by journalists uneducated to do it, lawyers, forensic experts meddling in affairs they have no business meddling in. They publish these things with the intention of achieving exclusivity, and then other media, which only reprint it for the purpose of informing the public, do the same," he explained.

Petronijevic noted that the media has no right to interfere in the investigation, and added that he believes in this particular case the prosecution failed to take control of the situation.

"According to the law, the senior prosecutor in Zajecar is the boss on the ground, he should have lined up the police, investigative bodies, forensics, journalists and said, 'we will give you information that you will publish', because withholding certain information at a certain time does not mean concealing it from the public, rather, it's for the sake of the investigation," he said.

According to him, there is no obligation to make many pieces of evidence, elements of individual people's statements, and material evidence from the field public, and very often that can harm the investigation, "because when information is released that the girl was killed in the way the suspects admitted, the person who did it will immediately try to hide the body."

Petronijevic also said that although at the time when the death penalty was abolished in Serbia he was against that decision, today he thinks differently because life imprisonment is a completely adequate substitute for that punishment.

"If you proceed from the fact that an individual is tried for the most serious crimes where most often they took someone's life, then - who has the right to take their life. Such an individual should be eliminated from society, deprived of the possibility of repeating the criminal act, and that is quite enough, while suffering and the need for some kind of revenge is a relic in criminal law," he said.

Commenting on dialogue between the government and the opposition to be held tomorrow regarding ODIHR's recommendations, Petronijevic stressed that there are things that are provided for by law that the government and the opposition can discuss and agree on.

"The electoral law is clear and it is not clear to me what they are discussing, negotiating or agreeing on. If the opposition says that it's not ready for elections, then that's their problem. It is the government's privilege to call elections when it wants, that is, when the law allows it. Belgrade has been functioning on the back burner for a long time, with temporary bodies, that is impermissible," he stated and added that the (Belgrade city) elections must be held as soon as possible, and that institutions must be formed in the capital.

When it comes to opposition's request to regulate the voter roll, Petronijevic believes that these lists must be updated, but added that the phenomenon of population migration is mentioned, and, according to him, these migrations are common throughout Europe.

"That bad thing is common in the whole of Europe, and now the whole of Europe comes to us to talk about it. That's hypocrisy, you can't tell me, 'why are you doing this' when you invented it, not me," the lawyer said.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)