N.N., to ask her whether an intervention team of the
Belgrade Secretariat for Internal Affairs came to her
flat in January 1994, threatening that they would
throw N.N. from the sixth floor, should they capture
him.
2.16 On 21 August 1997, Dr. Z.S. commented on
the experts’ second forensic report (para. 2.14),
criticizing (a) that the experts had not provided a
satisfactory explanation as to why the result of the
HIV test had not been included in the autopsy report;
(b) the contradiction between the experts’ finding
that the brain tissue on the deceased’s clothes came
through his nose and mouth and the statement in the
autopsy report that the mucous membrane of the lips
and mouth cavity were “examined in detail” but that
“no signs of injuries [were] observed”, and that no
“foreign content”, i.e., traces of brain tissue, was
found in the nose and mouth; (c) the experts’ failure
to identify the part of the brain from which brain
tissue was missing; (d) their failure to explain why
such a small amount of blood was found in the
thoracic cavities, given that the complainants’ son
probably continued to breath for some time
following the infliction of the injuries, that the total
blood flow of an adult is 5000 ml per minute, and
that blood pressure is the highest near the heart
where the 3 x 1 cm aorta fissure was located; (e) the
experts’ superficial and contradictory description of
the bone fractures; and (f) their conclusion that all
recorded injuries resulted from the body’s fall on the
concrete ground, ignoring the possibility that some
injuries could have been inflicted with a blunt
mechanical weapon before the fall.
2.14 In a report dated 27 November 1996, the same
medical experts who prepared the autopsy report and
the first forensic expertise dated 22 November 1994,
while dismissing the questions asked by the
complainants’ lawyer (para. 2.12) as too vague,
addressed the objections raised by Dr. Z.S. (para.
2.11), observing (a) that it was not customary to state
the time and place of death in an autopsy report, as
this information was already contained in the report
of the doctor establishing the death and in the police
report; (b) that the reason for the late autopsy was
that the blood of the deceased (presumably a drug
addict) was tested for HIV and that the results were
received late on Friday, 22 April 1994, so that the
autopsy could not be carried out before Monday, 25
April; (c) that the corpse had been kept in a
refrigerator and only started to decompose during the
autopsy and its subsequent cleaning and transport to
the hospital chapel; (d) that the purpose of the
autopsy report was to record the injuries and changes
of the body of the deceased, rather than to explain
how the brain tissue came on his sweatshirt; it could
have passed through his nose or mouth, as the front
skull cavity, which forms the roof of the nose cavity
and of the pharynx, displayed numerous fractures of
the skull base bones, which were always
accompanied by ruptures of the attached hard brain
tissue; (e) that the little amount of blood found in the
chest cavity of the deceased was not due to death
prior to the fall but to the considerable blood loss
resulting from his injuries; (f) that Dr. Z.S. himself
did not rule out that a fall on the feet could cause
transversal fractures of the leg bones; (g) that the
bending of the body following the contact of the feet
with the ground did not exclude that numerous
injuries, such as the aorta rupture, led to
hyperextension of the body; (h) that the mechanism
of the fall first on the feet and, in a second phase, on
the left side of the body and the head explained the
decollement in the region of the left thigh, the fissure
on the lower left forehead, the fracture of the skull
bones, and the brain contusions; and (i) that the fall
on the feet reduced the body’s impact on the ground,
which explained why the autopsy report recorded
neither protrusion of the thigh bone heads through
pelvic bones, nor circular fractures of the skull base.
2.17 In a letter of 29 August 1997 to the
Department for the Control of Legality of the
Belgrade City Secretariat for Internal Affairs, the
complainants drew attention to the fact that inspector
J.J. reportedly was crying when the investigating
magistrate arrived at Pariske Komune Street N° 2
and that he went on vacation the following day.
They referred to the case of N.L., who had allegedly
been forced to wear a bullet proof vest, on which he
received blows with a baseball bat during his
interrogation by, inter alia, inspector J.J., leaving
few traces and causing a slow and painful death after
two weeks.2
2.18 On 30 August 1997, the complainants brought
charges of murder against police inspectors J.J., Z.P.
and M.L., alleging that they had maltreated their son
with hard round objects (such as a baseball bat),
inflicting a number of grave injuries to his body,
thereby voluntarily causing his death. Assuming that
the transversal fractures of the lower legs had been
inflicted prior to the fall, it could be ruled out that
the injured had tried to escape through the window.
The complainants also claimed that the police had
breached the Code of Criminal Procedure (a) by
forcibly entering the flat without the presence of a
neutral witness; (b) by calling the investigating
magistrate 30 minutes after the incident, rather than
2.15 On 26 February and 18 June 1997, the
complainants’ lawyer requested the district public
prosecutor to resubmit his questions (para. 2.12) to
the commission of forensic experts to seek
clarification of the contradictions between the
experts’ findings and the findings of Dr. Z.S.
2
See a newspaper article submitted by the authors in
VREME Magazine, 9 March 1996, “The deadly bat”.
95
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