By: P.T., STA
Milko Novič has been acquitted a second time of the charge that he murdered Janko Jamnik, director of the National Institute of Chemistry, in December 2014, after initially being found guilty in 2017 of murdering his former boss.
The judging panel of the Ljubljana District Court delivered the not-guilty judgement on Monday, shortly before the case would have fallen under the statute of limitations.
In the closing statements earlier today, the prosecution sought 25 years in prison for Novič.
Jamnik was shot in the head twice in a parking lot in Ljubljana as the institute held its Christmas party in December 2014. He died three days later and Novič was soon arrested as the main suspect.
Novič was first convicted of murdering his ex-boss out of revenge and sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2017.
However, after being upheld by the Ljubljana Higher Court, the ruling was quashed in October 2018 by the Supreme Court on the basis of a point of law appeal and a retrial was ordered.
Novič was then acquitted in April 2019 on the basis of a reconstruction which suggested he did not have enough time to reach the crime scene from his home in the window between his alibi and the time of the murder.
The prosecution appealed against the ruling to the Ljubljana Higher Court, which annulled the not guilty verdict last March sending the case into retrial at the first-instance court in front of a completely new panel of judges.