From the explosion to the verdict: Unattainable justice in the "MB Namenska" case

The trial of the managers lasted six years weapons factory "Milan Blagojević" u To the Lucans due to the death of two workers in 2017.

The outcome of the long-term struggle of the families of the victims for justice: the first defendant died, and on May 14, 2025. one of the accused was acquitted, while the sentence of the other was reduced from three to two years in prison.

How was the trial for the death of two workers in Lucani? Here is a recap of the event.

The explosion and indictment

It was Friday, July 14, 2017, when an explosion rang out in Lucani, a small town with a population of less than 3.500.

This is not the first explosion that happened in the "Milan Blagojević" Special Purpose Industry for the Production of Explosives and Gunpowder - over the past decades, this weapons factory has claimed many lives. Only during the term of director Radoš Milovanović, who held that position from 1982 until his death in 2022, 21 workers died in the factory.

On that day, in an explosion and fire in the temporary warehouse of the "Milan Blagojević" factory, the worker Milojko Ignjatović (55) died. His colleague Milomir Milivojević (25) suffered serious injuries from which he died after two weeks at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade.

The managers of that factory were blamed for their death. In June 2019, the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Čačak, branch in Ivanjica, filed charges against the general manager of the dedicated factory in Lučani, Radoš Milovanović, and the managers of two factory plants, Vladimir Lončarević and Tom Stojić, for the criminal offense of "serious crime against general security".

The indictment was filed only after the parents and sister of the injured worker Milivojević had a conversation with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.

The trial began in October of the same year, and the executives denied guilt from the beginning.

The court process was initiated only thanks to the persistence of the father of the deceased Milomir - Milovan Milivojević, who himself works at the "Milan Blagojević" factory, and who accused the authorities of concealing the circumstances under which the accident occurred and of protecting the director.

On the day of the first court hearing, which was postponed for a long time, the workers of the Lucan factory were brought in front of the Ivanjica court to support the director, and some of them insulted the family of the victim Milomir Milivojević. The workers greeted the arrival of director Radoš Milovanović with loud applause. The entire country saw this unprecedented and painful act on television.

That was just the beginning for the Milivojević family, who were ostracized from their hometown over the years. Everyone knows each other there, especially the workers of the factory that feeds the whole town.

"Not even all my neighbors come to my house. I used to have twelve guests from the neighborhood at a party, now I have none," Milovan Milivojević told "Vreme" a few years ago.

Leaks in the factory

Then Milivojević talked about the circumstances under which the tragedy in Lucani took place.

The father of the deceased Milomir claimed that the problem was that there were 300 barrels with technological gunpowder waste in the warehouse that did not have a license, open, without lids, without antistatic bags, and each one contained 50-70 kilograms of material.

"The regulations do not allow such a quantity of barrels, and it has not been determined what the humidity of that gunpowder was either," said Milovan.

"That gunpowder waste is stable up to 10 percent humidity, it cannot be ignited with an open flame, not even with a 'burner'. The regulation says that the humidity level must not be less than 30 percent, and it was below five percent."

There wasn't even an antistatic surface, the barrels were unloaded directly onto the asphalt, the thick tire was put on only afterwards. Milovan also found out that there was no water in the hydrant in front of the warehouse - a new one was installed before that, but no water was connected. He also expressed doubt that the fire-fighting system was in operation at all, because "if it had been activated, they might have been able to survive."

Judgment and its annulment

Factory director Radoš Milovanović, the first defendant in this case, died during the court process on April 21, 2022.

The first verdict was handed down by the Basic Court in Ivanjica, which in April 2023 sentenced Vladimir Lončarević and Toma Stojić to three years in prison each for the death of two workers.

The father of the deceased Milomir said at the time that the sentence was "too lenient".

"This sentence is so lenient, not to say miserable, minor. Is it possible that the life of my son, a guy who was yet to live, full of strength and energy, of 25 years and Milojko Ignjatović, be three years in prison," said Milovan Milivojević.

However, that was not the end. At the end of October of the same year, the Court of Appeal in Kragujevac annulled the first-instance verdict and sent the case back to the first-instance court for a retrial.

"The cause of the fire and the causal connection between the fire and the failure of the defendants as responsible persons have not been determined," the Court of Appeal stated.

Especially, as the court explained, given the fact that, for now, it has not been established in a clear and unquestionable way whether the defendant Lončarević had the capacity of a responsible person in a legal entity at the time of the critical event.

"As well as whether the actions of the defendant Tom Stojić were contrary to the stated provisions of the Law on Safety and Health at Work, the Rulebook on Occupational Safety in the Manufacture of Explosives and Gunpowder and Manipulation of Explosives and Gunpowder and the Rulebook on Preventive Measures for Safe and Healthy Work in Manual Handling of Loads, as well as the Collective Agreement on Safety and Health at Work, as they are charged with the accusation, however the first-instance court determines in the challenged verdict," the court stated in its response to Insider.

End of the court process

Two years later, the matter finally received a judicial conclusion. However, it is even less favorable for the families of the victims than it was in the first judgment.

The final verdict of the Appellate Court in Kragujevac acquitted Vladimir Lončarević, the then manager of the "Milan Blagojević - Namenska" factory in Lučani, of the charges, and his colleague Tomo Stojić was sentenced to two years in prison, instead of the original three.

The judge announced that Tom Stojić's sentence was changed to two years, because the court concluded that the crime he was accused of was "committed out of negligence".

The father of the victim Milomir, Milovan Milivojević resignedly stated that he had lost the battle he had been fighting since the beginning of the trial.

"I know that my son is not guilty, but here... Dad failed neither to save him, nor to prove that they killed him with their irresponsibility, arrogance, disobeying the regulations," stated Milivojević.

He hopes that his son is the last victim in that factory, and he sees the verdict as a "mirror of the system and judiciary" in Serbia.

"To put it mildly, a bad ending to this whole story. After this, all possible appeals, requests for protection of legality by the prosecutor to the Supreme Court or Strasbourg, all this does not change the fact that these judgments are final and that is the end of the story," concluded Vladimir Todorić, the lawyer of the Milivojević family.