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The harrowing photographs of a dying Petar Sutovic cover the coffee table at his family’s London home. They show a young man with a bruised body and bloody nose lying on a badly made bed. Beside him is the drug paraphernalia typical of a heroin addict. His mother, Susan, looks at the pictures before turning each image face down. Putting her head in her hands, she explains: ‘I cannot bear to see them. Who did this to my lovely son? And why?’ These questions have remained unanswered for two-and-a-half years, ever since Susan was woken by an international phone call in the early hours of January 27, 2004, telling her that Petar had died at the flat she owned in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. Authorities in both Britain and Serbia insisted that all the evidence pointed to a drug overdose by a troubled 24-year-old with a history of ill-health after a car accident. However, his mother suspects a more sinister chain of events. She insists Petar was not — and never had been — involved in drugs. And she fears he may have been the victim of a hideous new crime: the trade in human organs for transplant. She has fought a difficult battle to learn the truth. And last week she stood in the witness box at the opening of a second London inquest into Petar’s death. The second inquest — a rare event in Britain — was permitted by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith after a High Court hearing brought by Susan’s lawyers in May. There, the judge agreed that the first inquest by coroner Dr William Dolman had been insufficiently rigorous. Significantly, the judge ruled that Petar’s death might — as Susan insists — have involved foul play. Close to tears, Susan told the new inquest: ‘My son did not die of an illicit morphine overdose. He was not a heroin addict and had never been. He was murdered. ‘Justice has been denied to me, Petar and his family, and this should not have happened in a democratic country. Please will you re-investigate this tragedy so it no longer falls on me alone to find out what happened to my son.’ They were words from a woman whose life has been fractured because of the tragic events in Belgrade. Susan was close to her son, nursing him back to health after the car crash while on holiday in Israel. Petar had planned to become a lawyer, but the crash forced him to give up his London studies. Instead, in 2003, he travelled to Belgrade where he was setting up a property investment company. Susan bought a flat for £30,000 in which Petar could live, and mother and son remained in daily contact. On the night he died, they had sent a series of normal text messages to each other before Susan went to bed. But a few hours later, she took the call from a relative in Serbia that would blow her world apart.
Until then, Susan had been a successful human rights lawyer, a pretty divorcee in her 40s who had been born in Croatia but raised in London. Today, she is a broken woman. She has never been to work since her eldest son died. She rarely wears make-up, has put on two stone and has revived a 40-a-day smoking habit. She has so far spent £150,000 on an investigation into her son’s death, involving private detectives, lawyers and forensic experts. Now almost penniless, she remortgaged the family’s handsome house on a leafy road in Acton, West London, where she lives with her younger son, 21-year-old Marko. And the more Susan Sutovic has investigated, the more the mystery has deepened. At the centre of her concerns is the fact that when Petar’s body was repatriated to Britain, his heart was found to be missing. Why was it taken, and where is it now? Could it have been snatched for use as a transplant organ? Susan believes her son was beaten unconscious and then photographed surrounded by planted evidence of drug-taking. She suspects he was then secretly carried from the flat to somewhere else in Belgrade, where his still-beating heart was put up for sale, and ultimately cut from his body for the successful buyer. ‘The illegal sale of body organs is rife in the Eastern European black market. A young man’s healthy heart might be worth £1 million,’ says Susan. ‘I believe this could have happened and there may have been a deliberate cover-up by the Serbian authorities.’ Her theories sound incredible. They could easily be dismissed as the over-fertile imaginings of a deeply distraught mother. But this week, as the Mail examined the death of Petar Sutovic, we found the evidence persuasive. Certainly, independent experts who have scrutinised details of the case say it would be almost impossible for Petar to have died from a heroin overdose. The first time Susan became suspicious was just two days after Petar’s death. His body was flown to Heathrow on January 29 and taken to a holding mortuary in North London. There, Susan went to pay her respects. She asked for the coffin to be opened. ‘Immediately I noticed his nose had been battered, as if it was broken. I thought it had been punched-in by someone.’ Worse was to follow. When she viewed her son’s body again two days later, she was told by a female officer working for Dr Dolman that Petar’s heart had not been returned with his corpse. ‘It happens all the time when bodies come back from abroad,’ said the officer, casually. By now, a British post-mortem examination was about to be held. It took place on February 2, and was carried out by a retired 72-year-old pathologist, Dr Rufus Crompton. He came to an extraordinary conclusion. Despite the black nose and other apparent bruising on Petar’s arms and chest, he declared that no injuries whatsoever were found on Petar’s body, ‘externally or on further examination’. And astonishingly, Dr Crompton came to the view that Petar had died from morphine poisoning. He also confirmed Petar’s heart was missing. Already, Susan was growing increasingly desperate. She buried her son two days after the post-mortem examination, but her doubts began to build. She asked for a special test to be carried out in Britain on Petar’s blood samples to discover if they contained the specific morphine component found in heroin. The test came back negative. This fuelled Susan’s suspicions and so in July, six months later, she decided to fly to Belgrade to start making her own inquiries. She found there had been an earlier post-mortem examination at the Institute of Forensic Medicine on January 28, the day before her son’s body was repatriated. Susan was given a copy of the post mortem report by Serbian officials. It noted some — if not all — of Petar’s injuries while making no comment on their deeply suspicious nature. It also said that morphine had been found in his blood. However, importantly, the report declared that this was not the morphine produced by heroin use. Instead, it was the morphine found in the painkiller Tramadol, which Petar had been prescribed to help him deal with the continuing pain from the car crash he had suffered. Was it the discovery by the Serbians of this drug in Petar’s blood that had been relayed to London and perhaps misinterpreted by pathologist Rufus Crompton, who said he had died of morphine poisoning? Susan suspects so. However, during that July visit to Belgrade, something very important happened. Susan was handed a file of seven photographs by Serbian officials. They were said to have been crime-scene pictures taken by police on the night Petar died. Susan studied them. Someone had drawn an arrow pointing to Petar’s inner right arm, as if to say this was where a needle pierced the skin. But on closer examination it was obvious the marks there were bruises, resulting, perhaps, from a tight finger grip. The photos showed numerous injuries to Petar’s hands and arms as if he had warded off blows. His nose looked twisted and there was puffiness around his eyes. Dried blood appeared to run from the bridge of his nose and down his face. In one picture, there is a visible blood stain on the white quilt beneath the tartan one on which he is lying. In another, the stain is not visible, suggesting his whole body was moved and then the bedding re-arranged. But there were other telling clues in the photos. Two show the bedside cabinet next to Petar’s bed. Here, two cigarette foils are in view, together with a spoon filled with a brown liquid that resembles heroin residue. However, both foils were later found to be clean and unused, while inquiries by Susan showed that the brown liquid in the spoon was innocent enough: just holy oil from Jerusalem that Petar carried with him in a small glass bottle. So had the apparatus been deliberately placed there to portray Petar as a heroin addict? Was it part of a plot to smear his name and divert attention from the real cause of his injuries and death? What is not shown in the pictures is the blood-spattered wall nearby, evidence that only came to light when the family housekeeper noticed it. Also out of sight is a large window, left wide open despite the bitter cold of a Serbian winter. The evidence of foul play was mounting — but the detective work by Susan did not stop here. After Petar’s death, she had been given bundles of his clothing in which his body was dressed for the repatriation to Britain. At first, she put them in the attic; then she found the strength to look at them. They include a designer denim jacket, a cardigan and a white Champion brand T-shirt. On the back of each of the items are blood stains exactly matching those on the bed. Using the help of a forensic pathologist in Serbia, she reconstructed exactly what she believes happened to her son. She says: ‘I think Petar was attacked — hit in the face — which left the blood marks on the walls down from the height of his nose. He then fell to the ground and was dragged up by someone severely gripping his arms from behind, which left the bruises there. ‘His nose was bleeding and he was laid on the bed face down. There was so much blood that it soaked through the two quilts and right through onto the mattress. ‘Then he was turned over. The blood on the back of his denim jacket, for instance, matches exactly the blood on the bed. My son was then picked up and cleaned up while he was unconscious. He was undressed and photographed in the flimsy vest in the picture. The drug paraphernalia was placed around him and the photographs were taken.’ Of course, Susan Sutovic can only speculate on this — and what happened next. But she fears that Petar may have been kidnapped and killed to harvest his heart for transplant. The black market trade in human organs between poor Eastern European countries and the rich nations of the West is growing fast. The Council of Europe is calling for a new international strategy to combat the illegal theft and trafficking of body parts, which it says ‘is a hugely profitable business for organised crime’. The organs are either sold by poor people for a few hundred dollars or they are stolen from the dying. The gangs are known to remove kidneys, lungs and corneas, which are kept in cold storage and air-lifted to illegal distribution centres in the West, including Britain. Is this why Petar was killed? It’s impossible to say with any certainty. But Paul Canning, a former Scotland Yard photographic expert, analysed the pictures and spotted inconsistencies suggesting the whole scene was staged. His chilling conclusion is that Petar was brutally beaten and was still alive when the photographs were taken — his skin had some colour, rather than the waxy look of death. But there is another twist to this tragedy. It involves the one-page Serbian police report on events at the flat that night, and an interview with two strange visitors there. They were young Australian Serbs, associates but not close friends of Petar’s, who were spending the evening at his flat. They have told Serbian police that at 11.20 pm, Petar went to his room. Three hours later, his Rottweiler pet dog named Laki was sick and they knocked on Petar’s door. They found him dead. According to the police report, Petar was lying on the bed amid the ‘tools for drug administering’. The Australian Serbs are said to have called the Belgrade emergency services at 2.42am. The police say they arrived in an astonishingly quick 12 minutes. But can any of this be true? There are certainly inconsistencies. For instance, when Susan asked the Serbian authorities why her son’s heart was missing, they insisted the British pathologists ‘must be blind’ not to have found a heart. As Manolis Gavalas, a former casualty consultant at University College Hospital, London, was to comment in another report for Susan: ‘It is striking in this case that the facts do not add up at all. I fail to comprehend how these physical injuries were suffered by the deceased if one is to believe . . . that he died due to an acute overdose,’ There is another oddity. When Susan’s investigators visited Belgrade, they could find no one at the block of flats who remembered anything unusual happening during that freezing January night of 2003. Of course, most residents would have been asleep. But the attendance of the emergency services would surely have woken some of them. Yet the neighbours saw no flashing lights from ambulances or police cars. They did not see a dead body being carried out of the building and put into an official hearse. So what had happened that night? Did Petar Sutovic die of a secret drug habit, or was he murdered in a sinister plot that has been covered up to prevent embarrassment in Serbia? Now it will be up to the new British coroner to investigate. ‘We do not want that to happen. But if it means that, at last, the truth will come out, then I am prepared to let them disturb the peace of my oldest son,’ says Susan in sad tones. ‘I cannot bring myself to choose the headstone for his grave or the words for it until I find out exactly what happened to Petar.’ Readers comments:
I am so sorry for your loss. I hope
you find the truth and who ever is
responsible will be brought to
justice. The Serbian
authorities need to explain why the
young man's heart was missing. I
don't believe that British
pathologists would not have noticed
it wasn't with the rest of the body.
Was the body properly examined in
Serbia and if British authorities
feel there are inconsistencies, why
are the Serbian authorities so
reluctant to help?
That is one of the saddest things I
have ever read. My heart goes out to
this courageous mother who is
willing to give up everything to
find the truth in her son's death. May I add that my
brother died in the same way, except
that he had his arms under his head,
sunglasses on top of his head, like
he was sunbathing and an empty
wallet next to him.
My God what sort of world are we
living in, we just have no idea what
goes on outside our cosy little life
we make for ourselves. My thoughts
are with the family. My heart goes to
the mother and her quest to find the
killers of his son.
I am so sad to hear such a sad story
and I have a gut feeling that the
mother is right to be suspicious.
I just cannot
believe how this could have
happened. For the British
pathologist
to say that quite often people come
back without organs is incredulous.
I cannot believe what I have just
read. Keep fighting for the answers
Susan. My thoughts and prayers are
with you. This is truly
horrifying. Hopefully the truth will
come out and these people can be
brought to justice. Is someone
investigating the pathologist?
As a father of two this story sent
chills down my spine. The first
thing that went through my mind,
even before beginning the article,
was that the young man in the
pictures did not appear dead! I am stunned. I
will pray.
What a tragedy. I pray that the
truth will be revealed and Susan
will find all the answers to her
questions. I look at the picture of
Petar and think "He could be my own"
for then I can experience in some
way, what Susan is feeling right
now. I sympathize with
Susan and am appalled how anyone
could think of this as a drug death
with all of the overwhelming
evidence to the contrary.
Why would anybody steal the heart of
morphine addict? Horrible tragedy
--could happen to anyone.
I am speechless, I wish to help by
including the family in our prayers.
 Sleeping Beauty Date : 14.07.2006
07.10.2005 State Murder High Court judge agrees Petar Sutovic, son of London lawyer specialising in defending amnesty applications of Serbian dissidents, was possibly murdered by Serb security service in Belgrade
The
Times, October 07, 2005 SHORTLY before his death, Petar Sutovic, a former law student, sent a studio portrait of himself to his mother with the handwritten message: “They say a picture can say 1,000 words.” When the 25-year-old Briton died, supposedly on the bed of his Belgrade flat, investigations in Serbia and Britain initially pointed to a drug overdose. But a set of photographs of the crime scene betray clues that his mother, Susan Sutovic, a prominent London human rights lawyer representing Serbian dissidents, believes indicate that he was murdered. The pictures, never before published, convinced a High Court judge that a British inquest may have reached the wrong conclusion by ruling out foul play. Paul Canning, a former Scotland Yard photographic expert, has analysed the shots and spotted inconsistencies which he says suggest that the scene was staged. His chilling conclusion is that the Briton was brutally beaten before the photographs were taken but may have been pictured still alive, unconscious and about to be finished off. Mr Sutovic, a Londoner, had gone to live in the Serbian capital after a road crash that left him severely scarred and self-conscious about his appearance. In hospital, he had been given medical morphine. His post-traumatic stress disorder required treatment at the Priory Hospital in London. Young men with disfigured torsos attract few stares in the war-ravaged Balkans. Mr Sutovic became devoted to his Orthodox Christian faith. He visited his father’s relatives in the countryside of Montenegro, his parents having become estranged. Physically, he gained the confidence to take up boxing. While he hoped one day to complete his legal studies, he lived easily on an allowance in low-cost central Belgrade in a flat bought by his mother. Mr Sutovic died in January last year. A Serbian post-mortem examination blamed his death on an intake of drugs. The body was flown to Heathrow for burial and arrived, unusually, fully clothed rather than wrapped in a shroud. A Home Office pathologist examined the body and concluded that no injuries could be seen externally or on further examination. Mrs Sutovic became suspicious when her son’s housekeeper in Belgrade opened a bag of the dead man’s clothing that had been sent back by the Serbian mortuary. The clothes were heavily bloodstained. She then examined the garments in which he had been flown to Britain. Again, these items appeared to be soaked in blood. She hired independent investigators. They discovered dirty footmarks on the legs of her son’s jeans, possible evidence that he had been kicked. In Belgrade they found spots of his blood on the bedroom wall, which indicated the possibility of a violent struggle. In the meantime William Dolman, the North London Coroner, recorded an open verdict, giving the cause of death as morphine poisoning. His conclusion was based on a toxicological report indicating high, but not necessarily fatal, levels of the drug. Mrs Sutovic challenged the inquest in the High Court, where Mr Justice Forbes granted her permission to apply for judicial review of a “very worrying” case. The scene photographs were decisive. The court could not, he declared, ignore “the evidence of our own eyes”. The judge said: “Plainly, an injury to the nose and the area immediately adjacent to the nose can be seen. There was plainly a great deal of blood around his head. It was sufficient to soak through and on to the mattress. “The coroner should have gone on and looked at this aspect of the matter more closely. Had he done so, he might have been driven to the conclusion that this young man was subdued and then killed.” Reports from the Serbian investigation say that two men, a lodger and a friend, were in the flat on the night that Mr Sutovic died. But there are flaws. Inconsistent timings are given. A syringe is said to have been found variously in the dead man’s arm or on the floor. Drug paraphernalia, including needles and a spoon, were said to have been found. Mrs Sutovic says that her son was a diabetic who injected insulin four times a day. Yet the British post-mortem examination found that “no apparent old or recent injection marks were seen”. Mr Canning has spent weeks examining the pictures. “The Serbian police scene photographs clearly show that Petar was subjected to a serious assault,” he said. “The signs of injuries around the nose, side of the face and to both arms are clear evidence of this. “I am not convinced that Petar Sutovic was dead at the time the photographs were taken. He appears unconscious. His skin has some colour, rather than the pale, waxy look of death. I think that Petar was assaulted prior to the police photographs being taken and then cleaned up and dressed ready for the photographs. “Could it be possible that Petar sustained a further serious assault following the police scene photographs, which could explain the heavily bloodstained clothing?” Mr Canning highlights specific damage to clothes photographed after being removed from Mr Sutovic’s body. Their condition is consistent with his having suffered a later beating. A white Champion vest, identical to that worn by Mr Sutovic in the scene, has been dirtied, further bloodstained and ripped. Mr Sutovic’s dark trousers, which can be seen unmarked as he lies on the bed, are heavily stained. The pattern of blood on the dead man’s clothing is consistent with injuries to the lower back, but there is no suggestion of such harm on the scene pictures. Mr Canning is also struck by the apparent speed with which a police scenes-of-crime photographer arrived in the middle of the night. “It seems very strange to me that the police were there in breakneck time,” he said. Mrs Sutovic believes that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has let her down in its handling of her son’s death. The former Labour MP Tony Benn has written to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, asking for an independent inquiry. “She was gravely misled about the circumstances of her son’s death and those responsible failed in their duty,” Mr Benn said. “I am convinced that the case has to be looked at afresh by those who were not directly involved.” The Foreign Office said: “We are offering all the consular support we can to Mrs Sutovic. What we can’t do is investigate a case in another country. The Serbian authorities have ruled on the case and we have to accept their ruling.” LIFE AND DEATH August 1, 1979 Born in London 1998 Law student. Obtains flying licence. Diagnosed diabetic July 14, 2000 Seriously injured in road accident in Israel. Later moves to Serbia January 27, 2004 Dies in Belgrade September 27, 2004 Coroner records open verdict: cause of death, morphine poisoning March 11 2005 Mr Justice Forbes in the High Court gives Mr Sutovic’s mother Susan permission for a judicial review LEGAL OPINION “The fact that my pathologist could not find injection marks is only one factor in the whole of the evidence adduced. I pointed out at an early stage that inquiries into deaths abroad are difficult and often unsatisfactory. I was not prepared to allow the inquests to become a forum for extraneous matters or wild speculation.” William Dolman, North London Coroner, letter to Susan Sutovic “She was not raising fanciful points and there are areas of concern. This was a British citizen. Yes, it was abroad but if these non-fanciful points raise the question as to the circumstances of death suggesting that a crime has been committed, then I think at least arguably questions of inconvenience and cost do not really carry much weight.” Mr Justice Forbes, High Court |
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A
very suspicious death
THE sixth law of tabloid journalism
states that any article that does not say Princess
Diana was an angel made of flesh and silk is a
“devastating blow” to Princes William and Harry. 
And we learn that the magazine has printed a list of
what Diana had in her possession at the time. The
Star dutifully tells us that Diana had a Jaeger
watch, a pearl bracelet, black Versace shoes, a
mobile phone and an earring. 
Judge
backs mother's mission to find truth of son's 'drugs death'
"Serb
murder" case
Son
of human rights lawyer "murdered
by Serbian agents"