The legal team of Duško Knežević and the Atlas Group will ask the High Court for permission to publicly broadcast the main hearings for the "Envelope" affair in the High Court in Podgorica, the Legal Team announced.
In the press release delivered by the Atlas Group, it is stated that the first trial, with Judge Nenad Vujanović, is scheduled for July 17 at nine o'clock, and that the next two are scheduled for September 18 and 20, also at nine o'clock.
"The legal team of Duško Knežević and the Atlas Group will ask the High Court for permission to publicly broadcast this process due to the great interest of the domestic and foreign public, because it is an event that changed the democratic path of Montenegro and was decisive for the fall of Milo Đukanović's regime in the parliamentary elections on 30 in August 2020," the announcement states.
Knežević's legal team and the Atlas group said that there is great interest from several national broadcasters who have expressed their willingness to broadcast this trial live, as well as a live broadcast on YouTube.
"We ask the interested media to contact our legal team, so that we can include the names of the broadcasters in the application for the broadcast license," said the Legal Team.
They state that the "Envelope" affair was started after the president of the Atlas Group, Duško Knežević, published a video in 2019 showing him handing 97.000 euros to the mayor of Podgorica, Slavoljub Stijepović, to finance the campaign of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), whose leader was Milo at the time. Đukanović, on the eve of the 2016 elections.
"The indictment against Stijepović and Knežević was confirmed in May 2021. The proceedings against Stijepović were suspended twice, and the court stated that his defense was accepted as true. The third time, in September 2021, the court confirmed that part of the indictment as well. ", it is written in the statement of the Legal Team.
On April 30, Knežević was extradited to Montenegro from Great Britain.
He is accused of several criminal acts in which he damaged the state for several million euros.
Several indictments were brought against Knežević in Montenegro - among other things, for organizing a criminal group, money laundering and abuse of position in business operations.
At the beginning of 2020, the Podgorica High Court confirmed the indictment against Knežević in the "Karbon" case, in which he allegedly caused damage to the company "Global Karbon" with four other members of the criminal group and obtained an illegal benefit of 1.942.000 euros.
Knežević was also accused in the "Airports" case, where together with the directors of his Atlas bank, Marko Nikolić and Dijana Zečević, he allegedly damaged the Aerodrome of Montenegro for three million euros.
The beginning of 2019 was marked by the "Envelope" affair, when Knežević published a video showing him handing over, as he claimed, 97.500 euros to the functionary of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the former mayor of Podgorica, Slavoljub Stijepović.
Knežević claims that this is money for financing the government's election campaign and that he did it in agreement with the leader of the DPS and the current president of the state, Milo Đukanović.
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