Profile of a Serbian Murderer

Vojislav and Ivana were unhappy with life here and decided to look for something better abroad. Ivana received a scholarship in Germany. "We spoke to each other over the phone every day, everything was wonderful. We wanted to get married, raise a family, have children.... And then, in early August, she showed up at the airport and didn't even kiss me," Vojislav says. "That evening, we talked for quite a while and she told me that her career was her most immediate priority, and that she would always have fond memories of me." (Vojislav told the judge that Ivana had confessed to him that she was going to marry a German and carry on with university in Germany).

"Damned Germany," Vojislav screamed. "I begged her to stay here, but she just didn't hear me at all. She said she didn't want to worry about things like food, public transport and other basic necessities. A few days later, she came to my place. We were alone that evening."

"She was watching television and she didn't seem to hear anything I was saying. I took a five-kilogram weight, came to her from the side (to the judge he said that it was from behind, which was good enough for the prosecutor to ask for murder one) and hit her in the back of the head."

Vojislav tied the unconscious girl and when the judge asked him why, he said: "I don't know, to stop her from moving I guess". He carried on: "I wanted to leave a mark, some kind of a brand, because she wouldn't take anything from me. I took an acid for washing sanitary facilities from the toilet and injected it into her throat. I stood infront of her and kept screaming "Why, why? Why damned Germany ? Her wheezing sounded like a drumbeat in my head and I felt as if someone was hitting me with a hammer on top of my own head. I wanted to stop it, and I kept stabbing her in the stomach with an awl. When I came to my senses, I had the impression that some beast had done all of that, not me. I called the ambulance and the police."

Vojislav said during the inquiry that he knew he was going to kill Ivana a few days in advance. "I never planned to kill her. I told the inquiry what I did because I wanted someone to take my life away as soon as possible. I didn't have the courage to commit suicide."

Psychiatrists were unanimous in the opinion that Vojislav was a narcissistic individual unable to accept any form of defeat or failure. Narcissism is not uncommon, but it is very dangerous when it becomes a diagnosis of one's character. Experts said that Vojislav's sanity was substantially reduced, but not to the degree of insanity. In other words, he was aware of what he was doing. The trial will continue when court experts give their verdict. Vojislav often sobbed during the trial, without any tears though.

Cases like this one are becoming common. A fifteen year old boy recently shot dead his acquaintance who was a year younger, in the backyard of a Belgrade primary school. A boy known as "Little Mare", 18, who had a police record as thick as the Bible itself and was obsessed with cleaning up the neighborhood from scum (competition is probably a more appropriate term), was abducted and then shot in the arms and legs and left to bleed to death.

Murders happen all over the city. Last year, there were 84 murders in Belgrade, while there were only 19 murders ten years ago. Even in the former Yugoslavia, the murder rate was higher than in Western Europe, and it only increased since the outbreak of the war and the resulting social crisis. As if some kind of evil has got into people.

"Murderers differ so much that there is a wide range of characters falling into this group", says Milan Kostic, a clinical psychologist in the Belgrade penitentiary. After a number of expert verdicts in court and publications, Kostic recently published his first book, "Homo Negans or the Confrontational Man". The book is the first in Yugoslavia dealing with forensic psychology.

Kostic explains that most of the murders are committed by sane, normal individuals and that only one percent of those who commit murders are either mentally distraught or criminals. On the other hand, only four percent of those with mental problems are involved in crime.

Kostic reminds of the classification of murders according to types of what is known as criminal motives. The first type of murders are those motivated by greed, in which case the perpetrator's only desire is material profit. The second type of murders are committed to cover up some other illegal activity (common among gangsters, drug dealers, pimps). The third type of murders are conflict murders, which occur as a result of internal or external conflicts regarding human nature. In times of peace, the third type of murders are most common and result mostly from family and personal conflicts. The fourth type is sexual murders. A fifth type was added, one which focuses on murders occurring when there doesn't seem to be any motive at all. Murders with no motive are also committed by sane individuals, who draw some kind of pleasure from the act of killing someone.

Information available reflects a dramatic rise in the first two types of murders - with greed and the intention to cover up as a motive, and often a combination of both, Milan Kostic says. That doesn't mean the number of conflict murders has decreased - this type of murder doesn't vary much and it is likely that it will remain constant. Due to the crime boom, guns, automatic weapons and even hand grenades are used as murder weapons far more often than devices like knives, axes and - occasionally - bare hands.

We have sophisticated technology to thank for this.

There is not much research about killers in Yugoslavia. Three years ago, Leposava Kron, a psychologist and an associate of the Institute for Criminological and Sociological research in Belgrade, published a book called "Cain's Sin - Psychological Types of Murderers". Leposava Kron based her book on a sample of 142 prisoners or individuals treated in mental hospitals whom she interviewed. She classified the murderers into five categories. "They were all pre-war murderers who killed for personal reasons. Not one of them killed for greed," said Kron.

Milan Kostic confirms that complete and valid information is hard to find: "Psychiatric verdicts in courts are not compulsory when a murder occurs in Yugoslavia, unlike in many other countries. Courts ask for the psychiatrist's opinion only when they have doubts about the killer's sanity. Expert opinions are therefore given rarely, which diminishes the possibility of assessing the murderer from the most specific, psychological aspect. What becomes of them in prison is their position in the given circumstances rather than their true selves," Kostic says.

Leposava Kron says there is reason to believe that the number of political, gangster and sadistic murders is increasing. They have been incited by the economic crisis, a disrupted system of values, an erosion of morale and - of course - the war.

"The ancient commandment - do not kill - stops being universal in irregular circumstances such as war, because it no longer applies to religious or political adversaries, the enemy. Once the civilization barrier falls, the system of values falls apart and gives way to a new ambient ideal for the destruction of material and spiritual values, including human lives. Killing becomes desirable, aggression towards complete strangers remains unpunished. That is why I believe war circumstances can become a permanent trigger for manifesting destructive energy towards one's self and others. Post-traumatic stress in war times is a major generator of aggression not only with those who took part in the war, but all others too. Involvement in crime is also an important factor in such circumstances," Kron says.

However, there are people who don't kill even in war times. Kron explains that sociable individuals who weren't exposed to trauma until the age of 10 are unlikely to be susceptible to collective madness, even in times of war. According to her findings, 70 percent of all the murderers come from chaotic, separated and mentally disturbed families with an alcohol problem.

"There is good reason to believe that a child who saw or experienced a crime

or some form of blood-shedding will have an entirely different life than other children, and that it will never be able to recover the spiritual innocence it once had. Harris says that molested and abused children are programmed for murder. The most terrible thing is when a child is being abused by someone it trusts. Equally horrifying are war horrors seen on television as a form of social terror. Therefore, I don't think we can foresee all the consequences of the conflict in former Yugoslavia," Kron says.

According to the Belgrade police, local murderers are mainly individuals with an average intelligence quotient and education (closer to the lower limit), while their social status varies from extremely poor to those who inherited a fortune or made one in the given conditions which made Yugoslavia a land of "unlimited opportunities". Most of them had a prior police record. Many of them were connected to the war in one way or the other, but only a small number of murders is directly linked with anomalies caused by war. For the time being, at least.

Today's killers, according to Kostic, are mainly young men aged between 20 and 25, without a steady job, wanting power and all the privileges it provides. However, they do not have a sense for values, which prompts them to join a group and follow a leader without any insight into their own selves. "They are impulsive, arrogant and impatient. They suck up to the stronger, and they are ruthless and "courageous" with the weaker. They are extremely selfish and greedy in search of material profit as their only goal and motivation, achieved illegally. They are unstable, egocentric, lenient on themselves to infantile dimensions and completely emotionless. They have no respect for the rules of a particular society, nor do they recognize any kind of order or spiritual values. Life reveals itself to them in a monstrous shape - as a big, meaningless and worthless abyss," said Kostic.

When the likes of the above-mentioned characters lay their hands on weapons you get the all too familiar picture of gang warfare with spectacular shoot-outs involving pistols, machine guns and even stinger missiles. It all happens out of control, with no regard for the time and place or whether innocent passers-by will get hurt. In the last few years, Belgrade's citizens have witnessed scenes they had previously seen only in movies. Branislav Matic Beli, a well-known mobster who - like most of the "bosses" - did some dirty work for the state security service, was gunned down outside his Vozdovac home. Matic also sponsored a paramilitary formation close to the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). His assassins waited in a car, slayed him and drove off. They are still at large.

Many others were killed in similar fashion. Goran Vukovic, head of the Vozdovac clan and the killer of a famous criminal, Ljubmoir Magas, also known as Ljuba Zemunac. Georg Stankovic, Slavisa Pavic - "a rising star" (several innocent people were wounded when he was killed), Aleksandar Marincic. Radojica Nikcevic, a businessman with dubious connections and undoubted wealth and influence, was killed outside his company with two shots in the back of the head. A "clean" and professional hit. Rade Medjed died in hospital after someone had planted a bomb in his car. None of the perpetrators have been detected, and neither has the killer of Dragan Radisic, a police detective recently gunned down outside his home from a scorpion automatic handgun.

Unsolved murders, which have attracted public attention for their unseen "professionalism", cause fear and suspicion. The local judicial system believes that the "bosses" have settled all their scores, and that most of the recent shootings were the courtesy of individual youngsters trying to make a name for themselves (over a half of murder convicts are under 25). They say that there is "more shooting" than dead bodies, but that doesn't make ordinary people feel any better. The police want amendments to the law so that it gets even greater powers, although they are authorized to do virtually anything they see fit. The courts would have none of it, insisting that no one can be convicted without valid evidence or with evidence obtained by force. Judges say that crime should be dealt with by introducing preventive measures rather than more punitive ones. However, there is not enough money for preventive measures. There isn't even enough good will.

Economic stability, peace and social welfare are the best remedy for crime, ("The more educated, the less arrested," said Tasa Milenkovic, the first educated Serbian policeman, 19th century). A remedy which will keep eluding us for quite some time.