here - Humanitarian Law Center/Fond za humanitarno pravo

to their testimonies finding them to be unconvincing and aimed at either escaping criminal
liability or minimizing it.
The court did not consider evidence regarding the existence of an order to kill members of the
Rakić family, since the prosecution and the defendants at the preliminary hearing had agreed that
this fact was not in dispute. 108 On the basis of Budisavljević’s testimony, given in his own
defense and the testimony of witness Đorđe Momčilović, an officer at the Teslingrad police
station, who both confirmed that the defendants had socialized together and “acted as a clan”, it
was established beyond a reasonable doubt that there had been an agreement between the
defendants to execute the members of the Rakić family. Assessing the defendants’ mental attitude
towards the crime, the court established that they had acted with direct intent. In determining the
sentence for Budisavljević, the court accepted that his guilty plea, his contribution to the fact
finding process, his family circumstances and lack of previous convictions should be taken in
account for mitigation. Family circumstances, ill health and lack of lack of previous convictions
were assessed as mitigating factors in the cases of indictees Malinović, Bogunović and Gruičić.
The fact that the entire Rakić family was murdered, the ruthlessness that the defendants
demonstrated by throwing the bodies of Mane, Dragan, Milovan and Radmila Rakić into a cave
and the callousness that Budisavljević, Malinović and Bogunović demonstrated by torching the
body and holiday house of Lucija Rakić were all assessed as aggravating factors for all the
defendants. The court decided to release them from detention pending an appeal, holding that
their release could not cause disturbance among the general public that could jeopardize the fair
and smooth running of the criminal proceedings against the defendants.
Analysis of proceedings
An in-depth analysis of the judgment delivered following the retrial was not possible at the time
of writing of this report, because the HLC, which monitored the trial, did not have access to the
first-instance judgment in this case. Assessing the operative part of the judgment and the reasons
behind the judgment presented during its pronouncement, the HLC holds that the trial court for
the most part rectified the irregularities found by the Court of Appeal. As at the preliminary
hearing, neither of the parties to the proceedings challenged the fact that there existed a verbal
order to kill members of the Rakić family, issued by Dušan Orlović. This fact was taken as
undisputed. In this way, the court removed the deficiencies with respect to exceeding the charges,
108 According to Article 349 of the CPC, at a preliminary hearing the defendant pleads on the indictment and may
contest some of its counts, stating which of the counts he/she contests, because only evidence relating to the
contested counts of the indictment will be considered at the trial. Therefore the facts that have not been disputed by
the defendant and the prosecution during the pre-trial stage are not examined at the trial stage.
44