The Court of Appeal of Montenegro has upheld the verdict of the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje, which sentenced Alija Balijagić to a single long-term prison sentence of 40 years for the aggravated murder of Jovan and Milenka Madžgalj in the village of Sokolac in Bijelo Polje, as well as for the illegal possession and carrying of weapons.
As announced by the Court of Appeal, the appeal of the defendant's defense attorney was rejected as unfounded, and the first-instance verdict was confirmed, finding Balijagić guilty of aggravated murder and illegal possession and carrying of weapons and explosives.
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The same verdict, the statement states, also imposed on the accused the security measure of confiscating a hunting rifle of Yugoslav manufacture, brand "CZ", model "M 93", caliber 12/70, which was determined to have been used to commit the criminal offense.
The Court of Appeals announced that the defense appealed the first-instance court's conclusion that Balijagić took the lives of the injured parties in a treacherous manner. The appeal, they added, also pointed to the allegedly incomplete determination of the factual situation, especially in the part relating to the defendant's mental capacity.
The Court of Appeal, however, found that the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje correctly concluded that Balijagić committed the murder in a treacherous manner.
"This court, like the first instance court, finds that in this particular case, the treachery in the defendant's actions contains both objective and subjective elements of murder in a treacherous manner," the statement said.
The statement added that no fact relating to the defendant's mental state at the time of the commission of the criminal offense calls into question his sanity.
The court, as announced, particularly appreciated the results of the forensic psychiatric examination conducted by the expert committee. They determined that Balijagić did not show any signs of acute or chronic mental illness, nor any mental retardation.
According to the statement, the accused was diagnosed with a dissocial personality disorder with pronounced narcissistic traits, lack of empathy and moral inhibition, but his cognitive, memory and volitional psychological functions were preserved.
Therefore, the Court of Appeals found that there was no basis for institutional observation of Balijagić to determine his mental capacity, as requested in the appeal.
The Court of Appeal also examined the part of the judgment relating to the sentence and concluded that the first instance court correctly assessed the aggravating circumstances.
As stated in the statement, aggravating circumstances include the defendant's previous life, his multiple convictions, personality, propensity to commit criminal offenses, as well as the fact that previously imposed sanctions did not influence him to not commit criminal offenses in the future.
The court also considered the circumstances under which the crime was committed, as well as Balijagić's behavior after the murder.
The Court of Appeals recalled that after committing the crimes, Balijagić was unavailable to state authorities because he fled and was hiding.
"All these circumstances taken together justified the imposition of the harshest sentence on the accused," the Court of Appeals said.
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