In the High Court in Podgorica, the repeated trial in the "coup" case continued today. An inspection of the contents of the phones seized from the defendant Bratislava Dikić was carried out.
The content of his mobile phone "nokia 5610" with 208 pages, and the phone "samsung" GT 1050, with content of 219 pages, were reviewed. In addition, a review of the contents of the phone "Lenovo" with 28.471 pages, and another 28.479 pages, as well as the "iPhone 6" with three files, one of which contains 12.590 pages, was performed.
Defendant Dikić's lawyer, lawyer Dušan Jovović, reminded the special panel presided over by judge Zoran Radović that in the previous court process before the verdict was revoked, it was indicated that the phones "Samsung" and "iPhone 6" had been compromised, and that viewing the content was legally invalid evidence. He suggested that they be removed from the case file.
"The phones were taken from Dikić on October 16, 2016, at 00,05:XNUMX, and a certificate was issued about the temporarily confiscated items, when they had to be sealed. In his statements, Dikić previously said that certain messages were changed and that certain messages could not have been there. The evidence collected in this way is not in accordance with the members of the CPC, they cannot be used because they represent legally invalid evidence," said lawyer Jovović.
Addressing the court panel today, Dikić stated that someone deleted data from his phone on November 08, 2016, and that on that very day he was taken to the Special Prosecutor's Office.
"This is important to emphasize because on that very day I was taken to the Special State Prosecutor's Office, where pressure was put on me to admit guilt. I note that I was taken to the premises of the Special State Prosecutor's Office not only during the investigation, but also during the court process. Since the trial began, I have been taken to the SDT a total of 24 times. Then Saša Čađenović told me that if I didn't accept to say that the DF planned the attack, that Mirko Velimirović would testify as a witness... Everything was there. We had to endure all that and survive," Dikic said.
Accepting the appeals of the defense attorney, the Appellate Court of Montenegro annulled the first-instance verdict in this case.
"The panel annulled the first-instance verdict because in the process of its adoption and in the verdict itself, significant violations of the provisions of the criminal procedure were committed, and because of which neither the factual nor the legal conclusions in the first-instance verdict could be accepted, both in relation to the existence of the criminal offenses for which the accused were charged guilty, as well as in relation to the existence of their guilt for those acts", stated in the announcement of the Appellate Court.
They then clarified that, deciding in the second-instance proceedings on the reported appeals against the verdict of the special division of the High Court in Podgorica, they accepted the appeals of the defense attorneys of the accused and the appeal of the accused Bratislava Dikić, in the part in which the accused were declared guilty of having committed the criminal acts of creating a criminal organization and terrorism in an attempt to...
With the overturned verdict, the leaders of the Democratic Front (DF) Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević were sentenced to five years in prison each, for, as the indictment states, membership in a criminal organization since February 2016. The organizers of that group - Russians Eduard Šišmakov and Vladimir Popov - were sentenced to a total of 27 years in prison.
The former commander of the Serbian Gendarmerie Bratislav Dikić was sentenced to a single sentence of eight years, and Predrag Bogićević and Nemanja Ristić to seven years in prison.
By the same decision, Srboljub Đorđević and Milan Dušić were each sentenced to one and a half years in prison, Branka Milić to three years in prison, Dragan Maksić to one year and nine months in prison, while Kristina Hristić was given a suspended sentence.
DF driver Mihailo Čađenović was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. The indictment states that the two Russians organized a criminal group and recruited other members for the purpose of obtaining illegal profits and power, violently overthrowing the government and declaring the DF electoral victory and preventing Montenegro from joining the NATO alliance. The criminal organization, it is stated, planned to, on the day of the parliamentary elections on October 16, 2016, with the help of the Democratic Front, clash with the Montenegrin police and forcefully occupy the Parliament of Montenegro, as well as to kidnap and kill the then prime minister and the current president of Montenegro. Milo Đukanović.
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