Branislav Stanivuković (46) from Srbac has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of his common-law wife Milica Marinković (33), whom he doused with gasoline and set on fire, „Nezavisne novine“ confirmed.
The Supreme Court of Republika Srpska sentenced Stanivuković and rejected the appeal of the defense, confirmed Jelena Despotović, the secretary of the Supreme Court.
He was convicted for pouring gasoline on his common-law wife’s head and body in Aleksandrovac, near Laktaši, in front of her child, and then setting her on fire with a lighter.
The heinous act occurred on July 20, 2020, near her mother’s house in Aleksandrovac, and the woman died from severe burns on August 3 at the University Clinical Center of Republika Srpska.
According to the first-instance ruling, he has been abusing the woman from 2010 to 2020 in a particularly cruel manner, in front of the victim’s daughter.
He had been abusing the woman for a decade, beating her and mentally tormenting her, preventing her from leaving him or telling anyone about it. She tried to leave him because of that. She first ran away in 2012, after which he set fire to her stepfather and mother’s house in Mrčevci near Laktaši.
Out of fear for her minor daughter’s life, who remained to live and work in Laktaši, the victim returned to the common-law marriage with Stanivuković.
On the day of the crime, Stanivuković intercepted his common-law wife on the local road while she was with her minor daughter Slađana M.
That day, the victim went to Mrčevci because Stanivuković told her that he would set her mother’s house and her belongings on fire, which the unfortunate woman complained to her daughter about.
In her emotional testimony during the trial, her daughter Slađana M. talked about the heartbreaking scenes she witnessed when the abuser set her mother on fire, and the victim was screaming, begging her daughter to put out the fire.
Slađana then recalled that Stanivuković had talked to the police while they were in Mrčevci, and then they went in opposite directions. She walked with her mother on foot towards Aleksandrovac.
She remembered that Stanivuković quickly returned to them and drove slowly next to them, telling her mother that he loved her.
At the scene of the tragedy, he overtook them and got out of the car carrying a bottle.
„He said, ‘Enough now, you will leave me,’ and poured gasoline on mom while she was running away from him. I ran after them and at one point saw him reaching out his hand and then a big flame rising up,“ said Slađana M.
She said that her mother had severe burns on the upper part of her body, only her legs did not burn, and only part of her hair remained on her head.
She tried to put out her mother with a jacket, but she had severe burns on the upper part of her body.
A woman who passed by helped her and called the police and the ambulance, who arrived quickly.
She also said that Stanivuković had been mentally and physically abusing her mother for years, and for the three years she lived with them, she remembered more ugly than beautiful days.
Her mother, she said, wanted to leave him, but she was afraid.
„When she went to Austria in 2012, he called her and said to return or he would kill me and set her family’s house on fire, so she came back. He set the house on fire,“ said Slađana.
Previously, Stanivuković had been sentenced to 30 years, but the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska reduced his sentence from 30 to 25 years in prison.
Before these rulings, he had been fined for arson of a house, growing marijuana, and trading it.
