‘KOSTIĆ TORTURED, THEN KILLED THE GIRL!’ This is how it is done in cases of missing children!
Missing children are not common cases in Serbia, but they do happen. The case itself rarely ends in disappearance and it usually precedes a more serious crime. How the law recognizes the disappearance, whether it recognizes the difference between the disappearance of a child and an adult, as well as what the prosecutor’s investigation looks like in such cases, explained at the sixth conference of the “Tijana Juric” Foundation on child safety “Safety and Responsibility”, Deputy Senior Public Prosecutor in Belgrade Jasmina Paunović.
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– The law does not know the term missing person, it is a term more typical of the police and persons searching for missing persons. The prosecutorial investigation in such cases is primarily proactive, which means that as a prosecutor you should conduct any investigation, give instructions, qualifications of the crime, instructions that measure, when and where to use them. While the police are on the ground, the prosecutor does not go with them and does not search because, first of all, the Ministry of the Interior is the body that prosecutes and finds the perpetrators of criminal acts, and the prosecution is there to prosecute, conduct investigations and investigative actions. regarding whether a person will be charged or not – Paunović explained.
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As she pointed out, there are a small number of cases in which children appear as missing persons, because our law does not know that term, but the term abduction. In the beginning, while searching for the child, it is listed as missing, and in the end, if the perpetrator of that crime is found, it will be qualified as abduction.
– Kidnapping as a crime primarily means coercion, force, threat. These are all important elements of the abduction, followed by the detention of that person and the abuse of that person. The crime of kidnapping, although independent, at least in my experience, never ended as a kidnapping because the kidnappers are never satisfied only with the abducted person. That has a completely different goal and background – she added.
As she explained, abducting one person, which means abducting a child, usually, unfortunately, usually ends in serious crimes such as aggravated murder, rape, grievous bodily harm, human trafficking, child trafficking for adoption.
– These are the most serious forms of criminal acts that previously imply or do not imply abduction. Any person, even a child, can be killed on the spot, that is, not be abducted, but if it is abducted, then surely the epilogue can be so terrible – the prosecutor noted.
The law in Serbia does not recognize the difference between abducted persons when it comes to children and when it comes to adults, which, in the opinion of prosecutor Paunović, should not be the case.
– A distinction should be made. Children are persons up to 14 years of age. They are not so ready for life, they are gullible, it is easy to deceive them, drag them away, deceive them and dispose of them as they should not. It is easy to get them involved in some dirty games, unlike adults. And if a kidnapping happens, a 50-year-old man with life experience can defend himself in some way. A slight difference should be made between those two types of people – she explained.
Kidnapping is often learned when it is too late
As she said, although there are not many cases of child abduction in Serbia, she had several cases in which children were abducted, but it became known that the abduction took place only after the crime was committed.
– There is one case that ended with a final judgment in the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office, and that is the case from 2014. Whenever I talk about children, I am under the impression of that subject because the gullibility of a 14-year-old girl was used. The defendant in that case is Darko Kostić, who at that time was a person who did not have his regular residence, but, although from a good family, liked to be alone, to find friends on the street, so he met two girls, the victim and her best friend – said Paunović.
They were friends, and it seemed to the girls that it was an acquired friendship, and they wanted to nurture it, but his intentions were extremely tragic, which was later shown.
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– Namely, one of those girls, the victim in this case, was often depressed, she often went to her friend’s, she was able not to go to school for two or three days and did not come home regularly, which was not a problem or signal to her mother. that he should deal with it. On one occasion, she met Darko and he offered to show her where she lived. It is that gullibility. The girl accepted and went to him. He took her to an abandoned house by the road because he really lived there – she added.
The parents reported the disappearance on August 9, and the girl was killed on July 31.
– That period is crucial for us. The disappearance of the child in time is not reported. The girl was abducted, raped, mistreated and killed. The crime was qualified as aggravated murder. There was no kidnapping in that case because it is irrelevant in this particular case. It was consumed through the crime of aggravated murder, but the dispositive of the case states the period during which it did not occur, ie when everything happened exactly – the prosecutor pointed out.
The girl’s body was found only after three months. The search lasted during that period.
– The prosecution did not know what it was about, the police did not have any information except that they were last seen at a certain place with Darko Kostić. Every trace of him is lost there, as well as hers. During that time, he went to Sabac and spent some time there, hoping that he would not be reached – she said.
In order for one person to be discovered, the highest available means available to the police are used because, as he explains, he is the main and most important player in the search. It depends on them whether the person will be found or not.
– From my experience, I can say that the more time passes, the lower the chances of finding a body, although it does not necessarily mean that there were cases after 10 years of finding a body that is identified with the help of parents’ DNA – she explained.
Darko Kostić was discovered by giving the victim’s mobile phone to her best friend for use, saying that he did not see the victim, but that he found the phone on the street. Previously, of course, he took a card out of it. That aroused suspicion in the girl, and that’s where the story of how they got to the victim’s body starts.
Photo: Private archive
– Such a person as Darko Kostić will never be satisfied with one such commission of a criminal offense. These are returnees. His biography before that murder was so criminogenic that the indictment lists only the verdicts and crimes he committed on two full pages. There were murders, robberies, rapes, and he was released without evidence after his detention. That was the case where we rounded off the story by going out on the spot when the body was found. DNA was taken from a metal rod with which he beat her. These are such life circumstances that over time you realize that this is a special type of people with whom there is no conversation except through the court and through a lawyer – said the prosecutor.
As she explained, Darko Kostić was not satisfied with that murder, but, after two months, while the body was still buried, he raped his daughter-in-law in the same house.
The verdict was passed so that he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of a girl he used, who trusted him and sought a way out and salvation from his situation, which, as the prosecutor said, his mother did not recognize. He was given four years for rape. A single sentence of 40 was imposed on him in 2015.
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Amendments to the law help to react in time
– I think that the amendments to the law on the police that were passed contributed a lot to the perpetrators of criminal acts being found faster because it was earlier to leave a deadline, so that we cannot consider a person missing until 48 hours have passed. However, now that has changed and the police must react to every report immediately, which of course leaves little room for the perpetrators to cover up the crime, to flee the country or the city – the prosecutor said.
She added that there is now a life sentence for perpetrators of such crimes.
– As for Darko Kostić, he could not receive a life sentence because that law was not valid then, and when the sentence is determined, it is seen that it is milder for the defendant and is observed in relation to the moment of committing the crime. Amendments to the criminal law, which provides for life imprisonment for perpetrators of crimes where the victims are children, could not be applied retroactively. It is always seen that the verdict is milder for the defendant, and even that the act was committed at the time of the adoption of the amendments to the law – concluded Jasmina Paunović.
Source:
pink.rs
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