After the High Criminal Court in Croatia passed its first final verdict at the beginning of October, which confirmed that the SKY communication is legal evidence in the local legal system, a new decision followed - the panel refused to extract evidence from the encrypted communication from the case in the trial against Marko Grzunov and six accused of smuggling drugs and weapons.
As Slobodna Dalmacija writes, the High Criminal Court announced that Uskok filed an indictment with the Zagreb County Court against Marko Grzunov and six other defendants for smuggling drugs and weapons, which is based, among other things, on the encrypted communication of clan members via the SKYECC application.
"That communication, according to the VKS, was obtained by the French authorities, and it was transferred to this case on the basis of the European Investigation Order (EIN) issued by Uskok," the media said.
Prior to this decision, upon the appeal of the lawyer of the accused Grzunov, the panel of the County Court accepted as legal all the evidence on which the indictment is based, and the High Criminal Court announced that "the decision of the first instance court, which rejected the proposals for the separation of SKY evidence, is correct and well-founded on the law".
VKS specifies that the correct legal position of the Zagreb County Court is that USKOK was authorized to issue an EIN for the transfer of evidence, which was already in the possession of the competent French authorities.
It is also added that the appeal objections, which questioned the credibility of the communication, go beyond the council's powers "and are not relevant for this stage of the procedure".
In April last year, USKOK filed charges against seven Croatian citizens, among them Grzunov and a cousin of the former Split mayor Željko Kerum, who are accused of smuggling cocaine from South America, marijuana from Spain to Sweden, and weapons from Croatia to Italy.
Along with Grzunov and Josip Kerum, the defendants include Ivan Stilinović, Tomislav Kljaić, Amer Draganović, Tomislav Drmić and Mario Gavran.
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