VERDICT FOR THE TRAGEDY IN THE “SOKO” MINE: Families of the fallen miners awarded one million dinars each in compensation!

The Basic Court in Aleksinac has awarded the family members of the eight miners who perished on April 1, 2022, in the “Soko” mine near Sokobanja, compensation of one million dinars each for the death of their relatives, confirmed the families’ legal representative, Bratislav Stojanović.

The verdict is not final, as the Public Enterprise for Underground Coal Exploitation “Resavica,” as the defendant, now has a 15-day deadline to appeal this verdict to the Appellate Court in Niš.

Stojanović told the Beta agency that the court accepted his lawsuit, so 24 legal successors of the miners will receive a total of 24 million dinars.

“Compensation for emotional pain due to the death of a family member will be received by wives, parents, children, as well as brothers and sisters who were in the same household at the time of the accident,” Stojanović said.

According to him, compared to the compensation awarded to the victims of the canopy collapse in Novi Sad, one million dinars is a small amount of money, but practice has shown that the Appellate Court in Niš confirms that sum in its verdicts.

“We are satisfied with the conduct of the court in Aleksinac in this case. We filed the lawsuit in the second half of 2025, and everything was completed relatively quickly. Court neuropsychiatrist experts performed evaluations of the adults, while child specialists performed evaluations of the minors,” Stojanović stated.

He also added that the trial concluded on February 4, and they received the verdict yesterday.

Response to the appeal regarding the criminal proceedings is still awaited

Criminal proceedings for the accident in the “Soko” mine have not been initiated, and Stojanović said that the appeal he filed with the Constitutional Court in 2024 regarding this is “still in progress.”

He previously stated that if the Constitutional Court rejects the appeal as unfounded, the families will turn to international institutions such as the court in Strasbourg.

The Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Aleksinac has so far rejected the criminal charges filed regarding the accident in the “Soko” mine three times.

After the investigative proceedings were conducted, the prosecutor’s office announced in July 2022 that there were no grounds for anyone’s criminal prosecution.

Then, a month later, the Ministry of Mining and Energy filed a criminal complaint with the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Niš against 14 individuals for a serious offense against the general safety of people and property.

However, after the pre-investigation proceedings, the prosecutor’s office also rejected the ministry’s criminal complaint, as it found that there were no grounds for suspicion that a criminal offense prosecuted ex officio had been committed.

The representative of the fallen miners’ families, Bratislav Stojanović, then filed an objection which the Higher Prosecutor’s Office in Niš accepted, ordering the Basic Prosecutor’s Office in Aleksinac to interview additional witnesses.

After interviewing the witnesses, the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Aleksinac rejected the complaint again.

The rejection of criminal charges caused outrage among the families, who announced that they “will not give up the fight for justice for their loved ones.”

The parents and wives of the victims have pointed out several times so far that the methane explosion that caused the miners’ deaths could have been avoided if the mine authorities had reacted in time.

Their lawyer stated at a press conference that methane concentrations in the mine pit had been elevated for days before the accident and were elevated on the night between March 31 and April 1, when the accident occurred at 4:20 a.m.

“The miners saw it on the meters they carried on their belts, and they saw it on the machines located in the pit. The machines are set to automatically shut down as soon as the methane concentration in the pit exceeds one percent, so that the operation of the stators and rotors does not cause sparking and the ignition of that highly flammable gas,” Stojanović explained at the time.

He said that the miners testified that they informed the engineer that night, but he did not react.

According to his information, on the critical night, the machines shut down four times before the methane breakthrough occurred.

In the accident at the “Soko” mine, Branko Čokorilo, Bojan Stajić, Bratislav Živković, Branislav Zlatanović, Petar Petrović, Darko Zlatković, Nenad Trivunac, and Radovan Grujić were killed.

Twenty miners sustained serious and minor injuries.