The commercial court in Kragujevac condemned the Public Company Resavica (JP Resavica), former acting director Marko Vuković and current acting director Saša Spasić, for "Soko" mine at the time of the accident in 2022, he was working without permission to carry out mining works, it says Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS).
As stated, JP Resavica was fined 2 million dinars, while Vuković and Spasić received fines of 120.000 dinars each.
The verdict is not yet final because an appeal has been filed, so the final decision will be made by the Commercial Court of Appeal in Belgrade.
The procedure was initiated after the accident in the Soko mine in which Eight miners died, and 20 of them were injured.
Mining Inspector Zorica Vukadinović determined after the accident that the part of the mine where the accident occurred did not have the necessary approval from the Ministry of Mining and Energy.
The trial lasted two and a half years, and was initiated based on a report from the mining inspection.
In a separate procedure, the firm Terragold & Co and its director Dragan Milošević, who performed the technical control of the project, were released from responsibility.
Chronology of events
In the Soko mine on April 1, 2022, eight miners suffocated in the mine shaft, while 20 of them were injured. The then Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlovic in front of the mine near Aleksinac, she said that "there is great sadness, eight miners of the 'Soko' mine died, they suffocated at 4:10 this morning."
She stated that there was no explosion and that the increase in methane was the cause of suffocation, the miners suffocated.
In July 2022, the prosecutor's office in Aleksinac concluded that no one was guilty of the miner's death. At that time, information about how the accident occurred was not disclosed, because the Prosecutor's Office said that it was not yet time for that.
A month later, the Ministry of Mining and Energy filed criminal charges against 14 people. At that time, State Secretary Jovanka Atanacković stated that the Ministry considers the suspects responsible for committing a serious crime against the general safety of people and property, which caused the miners to die.
In August 2023, the basic public prosecutor's office in Niš filed an indictment for economic offense against the Public Company Resavica, its current acting director Saša Spasić and former acting director Marko Vuković.
In April 2024, the lawyer of the families of the eight miners killed in the "Soko" mine in Sokobanja, Bratislav Stojanović, announced that he was submitting a constitutional appeal to the Constitutional Court of Serbia. He believed that the collection of evidence in the proceedings before the Basic and Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Niš was conducted in an illegal manner.
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