The Court of Appeal annulled the acquittal of Budimir and Marina Krstović and sent the case back to the first-instance court for a retrial.
The decision was made after a public session of the council, and following an appeal from the Higher State Prosecutor's Office.
In November 2022, the Krstovics were acquitted of smuggling 1.206 kilograms of cocaine. The first-instance verdict was pronounced by judge Vesna Kovačević.
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"By the first-instance verdict of the High Court in Podgorica, the accused Budimir Krstović and Marina Krstović were acquitted of the criminal offense of unauthorized production, possession and distribution of narcotic drugs referred to in Article 300 paragraph 1 in relation to Article 23 paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code of Montenegro," the announcement states.
As they state, the panel assessed that the first-instance verdict was rendered in significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure from Art. 386 st. 1 item 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is partly pointed out by the appeal, and which was partly established by this court examining the impugned judgment ex officio.
"A significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure consists in the fact that the reasons for all decisive facts are not stated in the first-instance verdict, and the reasons given are unclear in relation to certain evidentiary proposals. Also with regard to the decisive facts, there is a considerable contradiction between what is stated in the reasons for the verdict on the content of the documents or minutes of statements given in the proceedings and those documents themselves, which refers to the content of witness statements," the decision reads.
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