The Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica announced today that it has appealed to the Court of Appeals against the acquittal verdict of the Higher Court in Podgorica, which acquitted the defendants for the robbery of the post office and the murder of Ljubiša Mrdak in Nikšić.
"The Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica, on May 12, 2025, filed an appeal with the Court of Appeal against the acquittal verdict of the Higher Court in Podgorica, by which the accused MK, SA, NM, PZ, SS, DB and SR were acquitted of the criminal offense of robbery committed against the Post Office of Montenegro in Nikšić, during which LJ.M. was deprived of his life," the statement from the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica states.
All those accused of the murder of Ljubiša Mrdak and the robbery of the post office in Nikšić were acquitted on February 25th of this year.
The first-instance verdict was then pronounced in the Higher Court in Podgorica.
The robbery and murder occurred on October 20, 2021.
In explaining the first-instance acquittal, judge Veljko Radovanović said, among other things, that the court had to take on the role of an investigative body, taking into account the allegations in the indictment.
"From such an indictment, it cannot be determined who fired the fatal shots at the now deceased Ljubiša Mrdak. In a way, the trial chamber was faced with a fait accompli because it had to judge on the basis of such an indictment. The court had to conduct an investigation. Dozens of witnesses were heard, dozens of hours of video footage were reviewed," the judge said and continued:
"In the case of co-perpetration, the individual actions of the accused and their connection to the actions of others must be unambiguously determined. The fact is that the court had the opportunity to establish individual responsibility. Which the court tried to do, taking on an investigative role. But none of the witnesses could identify the accused. The court took into account all the evidence submitted by the prosecution and the allegations of the defense. The court considers that criminal liability could not be established in a clear and unambiguous manner," the judge said in the explanation of the verdict.
He believes that there were shortcomings in the prosecutor's investigation that led to this indictment.
The judge stated the court's position that in some segments the claims of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office remained at the level of grounds for suspicion, and in others at the level of indications or not even at that.
He added that the court could not, from the materials and evidence submitted by the Higher State Prosecutor's Office, unequivocally and with certainty determine that the prosecution's accusations were true.
Radovanović stated that the court tried, even if it was not its duty, to conduct an investigation at the trial hearings due to this type of indictment. He also said that even dozens of hours of video footage that were extracted from numerous video surveillance systems did not contribute to the investigation. He pointed out that none of the footage shows the accused with certainty and unambiguously, nor can the white Nissan Qashqai vehicle be seen with certainty in some of them.
The reasoning of the verdict stated that it cannot be determined with certainty based on such an indictment that Albijanic, on the orders of Mitar Knežević, together with another unknown person, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, drove a Nissan Qashqai jeep across the border into Montenegro.
"Mitar Knežević is charged with giving instructions to Albijanic to bring the vehicle and hide it. The evidence does not confirm this. No evidence confirms that Mitar Knežević hid the vehicle. No footage can be used to establish that he was driving it or that he was in it. It cannot be established that he hid the vehicle, nor that he handed it over on the day of the crime," the judge said in the explanation of the verdict.
He added that from such an indictment, the court could not even determine that the accusations against Stefan Regojević and others who are linked to the moment of the post office robbery and the murder of Mrdak are true.
The indictment states that Mitar Knežević from Nikšić, Stojan Albijanić, Nemanja Miljković, Petar Zolak, Srđan Svjetlanović, David Banjac and Stefan Regojević. The defendants, according to a previous agreement and elaborate plan, at gunpoint from the late Ljubiša Mrdak, Dragiša Dendić and Igor Ivanović, stole money intended for the payment of pensions, killing one person. The masked robbers stole 423.000 euros from security guards at gunpoint.
The indictment presented that the accused Miljković rented two apartments in Nikšić with the accused Svjetlanović according to a predetermined plan, where they hid before and after the robbery of the Post Office. From the rented apartment in Vuka Karadžića Street, the accused had a view of the parking area where the money transfer vehicle "Volkswagen Transporter" of Podgorica plates was located, according to the indictment.
The indictment stated that on September 11, at the behest of the defendant Mitar Knežević, Albijanić and another unknown person from Bosnia and Herzegovina drove a Nissan Qashqai jeep across the border into Montenegro, which was previously stolen by an unknown group in Derventa and had fake plates attached to it. The jeep was taken over by Knežević, who hid it until the day of the armed robbery. During that period, Petar Zolak and David Banjac entered Montenegro in a Citroen Cactus via the Sitnica border crossing. When they reached the ferry, Stefan Regojević was waiting for them.
In the evening, the accused Zolak began observing the location of the planned robbery as well as the route along which he was to flee after the robbery, together with Nemanja Miljković, Svjetlanović and Banjac. According to the pre-determined plan, on October 20, at around 9 a.m., the accused were waiting for security guards in a jeep. When the van intended for transporting money and valuables approached behind the post office building, the armed attackers jumped out of the jeep and quickly headed towards the back door of the vehicle. Realizing that it was a robbery, Mrdak tried to resist, but then the robbers fired several shots, one of which hit Mrdak in the chest.
The robbers beat the other two of his colleagues with their butts, sprayed them with pepper spray, transferred the money into their vehicle and fled at lightning speed. Soon after that, police officers found a destroyed jeep used by the perpetrators in the settlement of Grebovice.
An acquittal is expected for the defense
Attorney Marko Radović told reporters on February 25 that the trial panel's decision was legal and correct. He said that the court stated in the reasoning for the verdict that such an indictment had no place at the main trial.
"The court saw the investigation at the main hearing. It tried to make up for what were the omissions in the investigation. The court made the expected decision and what was stated in the indictment was not proven for Albijanić."
An acquittal is expected for lawyer Srđan Lješković.
"The acquittal was expected, the indictment was unargued, unprepared, superficial, without sufficient evidence, which indicates that the state institutions that were in charge of it, the police, the prosecutor's office, did not fulfill their task. I remind you that the court judges based on evidence presented by the prosecutor's office and collected by the police," said lawyer Lješković at the time.
He added that since the beginning of the trial he has been claiming that his client, Regojević, is innocent.
"Is there anyone in this country who would ask themselves who will restore my client's faith in the system, state bodies and the years lost in the detention unit," Lješković asked.
Lawyer Maja Zeković said at the time that the decision was "the final confirmation of the legal epilogue to such dangerous accusations."
"When I say dangerous, I mean the ubiquitous trend of the prosecution and police, that in the most complex cases, where the penalty is up to 40 years, as in this particular case, they ignore all the principles of the Criminal Procedure Code, and without a single legal evidence, or justified suspicion, they file indictments, misleading the injured parties' families and the entire public, that they are doing their job, all with the aim of achieving a temporary effect of "implementation of force". This type of prosecution's behavior is very dangerous, since it also entails multiple, often unforeseeable consequences, which are reflected primarily in the simple fact that persons who are not the perpetrators of the criminal offense are accused, that such persons are deprived of their liberty, specifically for three years, and that the injured party's family and the entire Montenegrin public are misled that the accused persons are indeed the perpetrators of such a serious criminal offense, although the truth and the legal decision are completely different," said Zeković.
She added that there was no investigation in this case, but that "we had an improvised investigation."
"We did not have legal evidence, but we had planting evidence and a myriad of legally invalid evidence, which, due to their quantity, literally forced both the court and all of us participants in the proceedings to listen for hours to the presentation of evidence that has no bearing on the subject matter of the proceedings, and so on for almost three years. All this is due to the illegal and, I repeat, dangerous conduct of the police and the prosecution, which is increasingly present in such serious cases, so the court, as we heard today, is forced to conduct an investigation at the main hearing and try to replace something that cannot be repaired. So, a case of four and a half thousand pages, of completely legally meaningless material, ends with an indictment without a single piece of evidence, and with a factual description of the indictment that even a first-year law student would not sign. And such an indictment, in which four co-perpetrators are accused of the criminal offense of robbery, without any of the co-perpetrators being identified, so none of the accused knows until the end of the proceedings what they are accused of, is confirmed during the control by the criminal extrajudicial council".
Zeković also pointed out that "such conduct by the criminal pre-trial chamber" is unacceptable.
"And it seriously questions the legal security of citizens, especially since no one is held accountable for such actions by the prosecution, the police, and the criminal pre-trial council itself, even though the accountability is evident and undermines all principles of lawful conduct. What today's verdict should provoke is a serious review of the actions of individual prosecutors when leading the investigation, and a similar review of the work of the criminal pre-trial council, which, when reviewing the indictment, do everything else except review the indictment itself, and therefore it is not surprising that, except for laymen and in professional circles, almost everyone incorrectly calls the institute of "indictment review" "confirmation of the indictment". All of these are side effects of the illegal, unscrupulous, and above all, unprofessional work of individuals who perform or have performed very important and responsible functions," said Zeković.
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