4
ĐORĐEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT
cigarette the hand of a person named Dalibor in ... Street who lives on that street and
is disabled.
When asked a further question as to whether he knew what that person looks like, he
answered that he used to go to play on that street with other boys from the
neighbourhood and he saw that person, who is about thirty, strongly built, has short
salt-and-pepper hair and a pale complexion and has difficulty speaking. That person
plays with other children who tease him and he runs after them and beats them.”
15. A police report of 7 May 2009 records that on that day on the
premises of the II Zagreb Police Station the police interviewed I.M., born in
1994. The relevant part of the report reads:
“When asked whether he remembers the event of 4 April 2009 in ... Zagreb,
concerning the harassment of a disabled person, Dalibor Đorđević, between thirty and
forty years old, [I.M.] said that he remembered that occasion, that it was a Saturday ...
and that he took his bicycle and went ... with D.K. to ... Street, where they saw
Dalibor, a person disabled from birth, between the buildings, playing with a ball with
some children who took the ball and did not want to return it to him. When he saw
this, he [I.M.] asked the children why they did not give the ball back to Dalibor, and
Dalibor started to shout and wave his hands. The children then threw the ball and he
took it. He [I.M.] was holding a cigarette in his left hand ... and as he was passing
Dalibor on his bicycle he [Dalibor] started to wave his hands and slapped him a few
times on the hand in which he was holding the cigarette and thus Dalibor burned his
hand. He was sure that he burned Dalibor only once and he was sorry for it. He did
not understand why Dalibor reacted in such a manner because it was not his [I.M.’s]
fault that some children took his ball. The pupil P.B. was not with them.
...
When asked a further question as to whether Dalibor had problems with other
children, [I.M.] answered that he is often on that street where Dalibor plays ball with
other boys and that these children tease Dalibor because of his illness ... and then he
runs after them and catches them.
In the end [I.M.’s] mother R. was advised to keep an eye on I.M.’s behaviour. She
said that she had no problems with him and she did not know why he had done this.”
16. On 19 May 2009 the II Zagreb Police Station sent a report to the
Zagreb State Attorney’s Juvenile Office stating that
– on 16 April 2009 they had received a letter from the Susedgrad Social
Welfare Centre stating that it had received a letter from the second applicant
in which she had alleged that her son had been ill-treated by D.K. and others
and enclosed medical documentation; and
– on 30 April 2009 they had received a letter from the Ombudswoman
for Persons with Disabilities stating that she had also received a letter from
the second applicant who was seeking help in connection with the frequent
harassment of the first applicant.
The police also informed the Zagreb State Attorney’s Juvenile Office
about the interviews they had conducted with the children D.K., I.M. and
P.B.