Appellate overruled the decision of the High Court, again on the "Envelope" affair

The Appellate Court of Montenegro accepted the appeal of the Special State Prosecutor's Office and annulled the decision of the Higher Court in Podgorica from March 2 this year, which suspended the proceedings against Slavoljub Stijepović in the "Envelope" affair, accused of money laundering as an accomplice. The case was sent back to the first-instance court for a new decision, it was announced today in the announcement of the Court of Appeal.

"The panel annulled the first-instance decision in the aforementioned part, because in the process of making the decision, the provisions of the criminal procedure from Article 386 paragraph 1 item 9 of the CPC were violated, given that the reasons for decisive facts are unclear and contradictory, which is why it could not be examine the regularity and legality of the contested decision. These violations were rightfully pointed out in the appeal of the Special State Prosecutor, and the second instance court looks after them ex officio, in the sense of Article 417 paragraph 4, in relation to Article 386 paragraph 1 of the CPC. In addition, it was also stated in the appeal that the conclusion in the challenged decision that there is not enough evidence that the defendant SS is reasonably suspected of the crime that is the subject of the accusation is wrong, in connection with which there was no evaluation of the given evidence, so the factual situation was wrongly established. , it is stated in the decision of the Court of Appeal.

At the beginning of March, in the indictment control procedure, the extra-judicial panel of the High Court in Podgorica issued a decision suspending the criminal proceedings against Slavoljub Stijepović, the former mayor of Podgorica, who was accused of money laundering in the "envelope" scandal. The same decision confirmed the indictment against Duško Knežević, accused of creating a criminal organization, as well as against Branislav Todorović, Živko Šljivančanin, Tamara Krdžić, Goran Grujović and Tomica Knežević, for the same criminal offense and for money laundering as a co-perpetrator.

"There is no room for accusations in relation to the defendant Stijepović Slavoljub, so the criminal proceedings are suspended," the decision of the High Court states. The defendant Slavoljub Stijepović knew very well that the money he took from Duško Knežević was obtained through criminal activity. This is indicated in the appeal of the Special State Prosecutor's Office against the decision of the High Court, which suspended the criminal proceedings against the former mayor of Podgorica, in the "envelope" case.

Stijepović was accused by the SDT of money laundering as a co-perpetrator, but the court panel assessed that this criminal offense can only be committed with direct intent, but that it cannot be concluded from the file that the defendant had the awareness and will to do so.

"Whether there is awareness and will is determined from the evidence proposed by the prosecutor, so if certain evidence indicates that there is a well-founded suspicion that the defendant has an awareness and will to commit a criminal offense, and there is also evidence from which it follows that this awareness and will is not up to the level of reasonable doubt, the panel of the first-instance court has no right to assess which of these pieces of evidence is true at this stage of the proceedings, nor to give greater value to one or the other piece of evidence. That is a question that is resolved at the main trial, in adversarial proceedings." , it is stated in SDT's appeal to the Court of Appeal. It is added in the appeal that, with such a decision, the panel of the High Court in Podgorica exceeded its functional powers and assumed the role of a trial panel.

"The actions of the defendant SS (Stijepović) and witness VB regarding the circulation of this money also confirm that the district SS knows well and is aware that this is money obtained through criminal activity, because despite the fact that the district KD ( Knežević) insists that they do the conversion, they don't do it, even though it was very simple, by going to any bank counter in Podgorica, but they return it to district K. to do it in his bank," the complaint says, among other things.