Jurić: I hope that Danka Ilić is alive

The tragedy that happened on March 26 in the village of Banjsko Polje near Bor left the family and community in shock and grief.

Although several months have passed, many still wonder where little Danka is and what really happened to her.

The founder of the "Tijana Jurić" Foundation, Igor Jurić, commented on the hearing of the accused, the investigation, as well as the media coverage of the case.

"Regardless of the fact that it was public that the suspect would give a statement contrary to what was published, that he would confess to the crime, it was completely clear to me that after a long period of time, he would deny the crime and everything he was accused of," said Jurić and added:

"I can't blame the media, because they have to make a story out of something, given that the police don't give much information. The investigation itself is taken care of, the media often speculates. However, it shouldn't affect the investigation, politics, and later on the trial itself. The public is very worried, because even after all this time, we have no solution. On the contrary, we are now in a situation where we have no direct evidence, that we have the denial of people who are suspected of having committed a crime, and we are also in a situation where people have lost confidence that the version that was presented to the public will be confirmed," says Jurić.

"It is important how the court will be able to make a decision now, if there is already a doubt about these people, and they do not have any direct evidence. We have witnesses who allegedly saw the two men passing by, but none of them saw that they were in direct contact with the girl. We don't have DNA evidence, we don't have a body. I think the prosecution has a difficult case and I have to say that I am not optimistic," adds Jurić and reveals that he is not in contact with the mother of two-year-old Danka Ilić.

"I am not in contact with the mother of little Danka Ilić. We usually cooperate with the families of missing children, but this is such a difficult case. We have not received a call from the family, and in any case we would offer help if the family contacted us, but we are not in contact," he says.

Jurić told K1 television that he still hopes that Danka Ilić is alive.

"We as an organization cannot allow this story to be pushed under the carpet and simply disappear. We have a confession without any material evidence. No normal citizen can think that this could not happen to him tomorrow. That is exactly why we started story; we wanted to sensibilize the public and bring Danka herself back into focus, because I personally hope that she will be found somewhere, because there have been such cases, although the chances are very small and we are aware of that, but why wouldn't we witness to a miracle and why she wouldn't be alive. It's even more unclear to me, let's say one person was accused of a crime, but we have two people, I can't believe that neither of those two people, who are from a village, who had no criminal record acts behind him, can hide this kind of thing. It's really strange and because of that I hope that the child is somewhere else," says Jurić.