The indictment filed against the former president of the Supreme Court Vesne Medenica and others is not based only on the transcripts of conversations conducted through the encrypted Sky ECC application, but also on the statements of individual defendants.
This is what the special prosecutor said yesterday, in the courtroom of the High Court Vukas Radonjic, who proposed to the extrajudicial criminal panel to confirm the indictment.
The long-time first woman of the Montenegrin judiciary, however, said in the courtroom that "the accusation is not a desire to deal with high corruption, which still exists", but to "attract voters".
Before the president of the council, the judge Goran Šćepanović, yesterday the justification and legality of the indictment against Medenica, her son, was discussed Milos Medenica and 14 other accused members of that criminal team.
The Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) accuses Miloš Medenica of forming a criminal group whose members, in addition to his mother, became her former bodyguards Darko Lalović, Milorad Medenica, also Vasilije Petrović, Bojan i Marko Popovic, Milica Vlahović Milosavljević, Marko Vučinić, Luka Bakoč, Petar Milutinović, Ivana Kovačević, Radomir Raičević, Marjan Bevenja, Stevo Karanikic i Goran Jovanovic, as well as the company "Kopad Company".
According to the claims of the SDT, they committed the criminal offenses of creating a criminal organization, the extended criminal offense of smuggling, the extended criminal offense of giving a bribe, accepting a bribe, unlawful influence and inducing unlawful influence, abuse of official position, unauthorized production, possession and distribution of narcotic drugs. , facilitating the consumption of narcotic drugs, illegal possession of weapons and explosive substances, serious bodily injury and preventing evidence.
Addressing the court panel, Medenica asserted that the indictment was based on assumptions, and then said that she wondered "From whom, when and how much bribe she took".
"This accusation is just an assumption, as is the fact that someone took a bribe on my behalf. One cannot accuse someone so easily. I will endure this... No one can defend me better than myself. I will state that I and my defense attorneys were prevented from defending ourselves in this proceeding from the very beginning. According to the law, the parties are equal, which means that the prosecutor cannot have more rights than the defense," said Medenica.
She added that she was not allowed to defend herself from the beginning.
"It is known that detention cases are marked with special urgency, and in my case they were particularly slow. In the first order for the investigation against me, it was stated that three witnesses should be heard, and only after more than twenty days was the first one heard. My personal telephone was inspected and confiscated on Friday, and already on Monday charges were filed against me," said Medenica.
She wanted to question the witnesses
The longtime judge claims that neither she nor her lawyers were informed about the witness hearing:
"I had a desire to attend the hearing of the witnesses from the Supreme Court... The defense did not know who and when the judge witnesses were being heard, so I did not have the opportunity to question them".
She also said that she will leave behind "her impression of the accusations that, as a former president of the Supreme Court, she became a member of an organized criminal group":
"If the actions and proposals by the defense had been carried out, namely the hearing of 23 witnesses who would certainly have something to say, there would be nothing of this accusation against me," said Medenica.
This accusation is not a desire to deal with high corruption, which still exists, but it is to attract voters, because this has a special weight. I don't have any Sky communication. God forbid I have a photo with any member of a criminal organization. I have been retired for fifteen months. How come I have influence. My career and my performance are being accused here," Medenica said yesterday
One of her defense attorneys Zdravko Begović he pointed out that the defense was discriminated against from the very beginning.
"None of the Supreme Court judges heard confirmed that Vesna Medenica influenced the passing of judgments. The indictment says that she negotiated with the judge in the office about the verdicts, but it doesn't say who the judge is or what verdict. There is no justified doubt that she committed a criminal offense, so I suggest that the court suspend the proceedings against Medenica", said Begović.
Attorney Zoran Piperović, the defense attorney of Marko and Bojan Popović, accused of illegal influence on behalf of "Fab Live", proposed to the court that the indictment be returned and that it be signed by a special prosecutor who has 10 years of work experience:
"If the judge in charge of the review case in the Supreme Court, did an action that he was not allowed to do, as the special prosecution claims in the indictment, then that judge is a witness and not a co-accused. This is the point of being a judge Branimir Femic made a legal decision and that there was no crime, while the prosecutor's office wanted to criminalize it in a way that even a trainee in the prosecutor's office would not have done".
Attorney Nikola Martinovic, defense attorney Vlahović Milosavljević, referred to the prosecution's allegations that she committed the criminal offense of abuse of official position, explaining that she, as a judge of the Commercial Court, issued a temporary measure decision, but also that this decision was confirmed and is still in force today.
Miloš Medenica's defense attorney, lawyer Stefan Jovanovic, stated the illogicality of the indictment, pointing out that he was accused on the basis of photographs, but also that despite the accusation that he facilitated the consumption of drugs for 38 people, none of them was heard as a witness.
And other defenders of the defendants, lawyers Zdenko Tomanović, Damir Lekic, Nikola Strugar, Bozo Milonjic, Nebojsa Asanović, that lawyer Dina Šabotić i Maja Zivkovic, they proposed to the court to suspend the proceedings against the defendants.
"Lynch of the accused"
A very detailed review of the allegations in the indictment was given by lawyer Miloš Vuksanović, the defense attorney of the defendant Marko Vučinić, who focused especially on Sky communications, on which the indictment is based.
"Court decisions cannot be based on such evidence, so I suggest that the court suspend this criminal proceeding due to the lack of any evidence that would indicate a well-founded suspicion that the defendants committed the criminal acts charged against them, or that the indictment be returned to the SDT for amendment." , he said.
He added that what the SDT provided as evidence was, in fact, unverified evidence and operational information - "on the basis of which it is not possible to conduct this criminal procedure at all."
Vuksanović asserted that the judicial authorities succumbed to pressure from the public and the executive:
"And they don't work according to the law unless something is transferred to them through public spin and political pressure. In this regard, the competent state authorities, first of all SDT, and no less the High Court in Podgorica, accepting the hoax in the form of Sky communications, legally and professionally exposed these people to public shame, allowing unreliable material such as the alleged Sky communications to come out be available to the public and the media in their rawest form. In this way, many people, including those who are the subject of these accusations, are exposed to a public lynching, a cruel and unknown court of the public, the lay judgment of readers of daily newspapers and portals who, from their point of view, legitimately transmitted information in the way that would most contribute to the circulation and readership".
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