Confusing and deeply disturbing information

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In the guild, there is an unwritten rule not to publicly comment on cases in which you do not act, whether it is the judiciary, the prosecution or the legal profession. However, some cases - popularly speaking, cases - are such that the public has a legitimate interest in knowing more than the meager information it receives from announcements by state authorities. Such a subject, unfortunately, is the "case" of Danka Ilić. Unfortunately - because according to everything known so far, this little girl, who was not even two years old, is no longer among the living.

On March 26 of this year, when the news that the little girl had disappeared echoed in the media, the public quickly became alarmed and thought that there was no one in Serbia who did not want to help find the child. Soon, locals, members of hunting associations and the mountain service, as well as many police officers, were looking for her. This "case" is the first in Serbia in which the "Amber alert" system, called "Find Me" in our country, was used. The sad news arrived less than ten days after the disappearance was announced. On April 4, the police informed the public that Danka Ilić was killed on March 26, the suspects for her murder were deprived of their liberty and admitted to the commission of the crime, and that a large number of biological traces were collected from the car used by the suspects, which will be forwarded to appropriate expert examinations . In other words, it seemed almost indisputable that Danka Ilić was in the suspect's car.

All the information that became public after April 4 is confusing to say the least, and some would probably say disturbing. In this place, I will not deal with the media that ran an inhumane campaign against the parents, and especially the mother of the missing child. On the contrary, the text will deal with the analysis of information coming from the state authorities - the police and the competent prosecutor's office.

The first information that further alarmed and worried the public was that the brother of one of the suspects, who at that moment was himself suspected of helping, died in the police station during police custody. The police announced that he died of "natural causes" and we received almost no further information about it. A few days after that, the media announced that they had access to the forensic medical examination and that it states that this person died due to violence and not "natural" death. This kind of procedure can have implications for the whole case of Danka Ilić and cause doubts about the complete behavior of the police. If it is true that this person died a violent death in the police station while in police custody, I believe that the whole event should be the subject of an extensive internal audit, and very likely some new criminal proceedings.
What was then, and what is still disturbing, is that the police together with all the supporting services failed to find the body of Danka Ilić. The police announced that the suspects fully confessed to the crime and cooperated with the police throughout, allegedly leading the police on their own route of movement on that critical day. However, the finale of the search for the body was still missing. What was also missing, according to information from the media, was the finding of any biological traces of the minor victim.

A few days ago, the media published the information that they had access to the "first forensic examinations of biological traces" and that they stated that no trace of Danka Ilić was found. It seems to me that this information did not attract the necessary public attention, and that the public's attention may have lasted a little shorter than it should have in this case. Because, when we compare the official information of the police with what we later found out in the media, we can determine the following: 1. the criminal event was characterized as a serious murder (murder of a child), the suspects were identified who were deprived of their liberty and who fully confessed to the execution - and state authorities failed to find the body of the victim; 2. the brother of the murder suspect who died after only a few hours in the police station was deprived of his liberty and suspected of assisting him - after which conflicting information appeared about the cause of his death; 3. the police informed the public that a large number of biological traces were recovered from the suspect's vehicle and from the field - but none of those traces belong to little Danka Ilić.

This development of events, to put it mildly, casts doubt on the actions of state authorities. According to the above information, it turns out that the acting prosecution has only the confession of the suspects, whose cooperation with the police failed to lead to any trace of the injured party. The whole thing gets an additional dimension in the form of the suspicious death of the brother of one of the suspects. In the last few days, there is no information that the authorities leading the investigation have made any progress in it. Sincerely, I would like that change to happen as soon as possible, mostly for the sake of the entire family of the minor victim, and then also for the sake of the entire public in the country who followed this "case". Otherwise, with a confession that cannot be supported by material evidence and the suspicious death in the police station of the alleged helper, this "case" could go in the opposite direction than it seemed to us at first.

The author is a lawyer