Judge Vesna Kovačević of the specialized department of the Higher Court in Podgorica acquitted all defendants in the "Apartments" case. This is a first-instance verdict.
The indictment charged the members of the Commission for Resolving Housing Issues of the Government of Montenegro from 2016-2020 with abuse of official position.
An indictment was filed against the defendants Predrag Bošković, Budimir Šegrt, Suad Numanović, Sanja Vlahović, Ivan Brajović, Dražen Miličković, Damir Šehović, Dragica Sekulić, Osman Nurković, Suzana Pribilović, Jelena Radonjić and Aleksandar Jovićević, due to the existence of reasonable suspicion that, in the period from 2016 to 2020, as members of the Housing Commission of the Government of Montenegro, they, as co-perpetrators, committed the extended criminal offense of abuse of official position, for which a prison sentence of two to 12 years is prescribed.
In her explanation of the acquittal, Kovačević said that the evidence submitted as photocopies was inadmissible to the court. She said that the photocopies were uncertified.
Piperović: Expected decision
Lawyer Zoran Piperović said that "everything was legally very simple."
"The expected decision of Judge Vesna Kovačević in the case of the accused Predrag Bošković and others. It was clear from the beginning that the indictment, and earlier the investigation, was forced from a criminal legal perspective, without any well-founded reasoning in the facts of the case. I did not address the fact that there is no original or certified documentation in the files. Even if there was, two things were important here on which the prosecutor's claim about Bošković's guilt is based, and which are unknown in law. First, that the Housing Relations Commission is a public legal body, like, for example, the Revenue Administration of Montenegro or the Customs Administration of Montenegro, and not an auxiliary body of the Government, and second, that the members of the commission had the status of officials by participating in it. Everything was legally very simple," Piperović assessed.
Radonjić: Illegal verdict, we will appeal
In a statement to the media in front of the High Court building in Podgorica, Special State Prosecutor Vukas Radonjić said that he considers the acquittal, which was pronounced today in the "Stanovi" case, to be completely illegal and irregular. He announced that the SDT will file an appeal.
"We consider the verdict to be completely illegal and irregular. We cannot accept the arguments given by the trial panel, which is that the Government, not the commission, decided on the conclusions in the granting of loans for improving housing conditions, because the Government only gave its consent to the commission's decisions. The regulation stipulates that the commission decides, that the commission is the decision-making body," Radonjić emphasized.
He referred to the court's position that it was a copy of the documentation.
"As for the copies of copies themselves, as the court says, we believe that it is not a copy at all, but a copy of the original, because that documentation was also submitted by the commission, the accused Bošković, to the Special State Prosecutor's Office and the previous case processor. It is completely illogical that the accused submitted copies of the documentation, when at that time he was the president of the Commission for Resolving the Housing Needs of Officials," Radonjić pointed out.
He added that it is obvious that the previous caseworker, as can be seen from the file, copied that documentation.
"So that documentation is fully legally valid and can be used as evidence. I do not agree with the position of the panel that copies are not evidence, and that this confirms the right to defense. On the contrary, this court decision confirms the right to the truth, because the court did not bother to establish the truth. If it doubted the content of the copies, that what is contained in the copies, and concerns the amount of loans received by the persons, if they received loans, they should have summoned all those persons, to hear whether they received loans in those amounts, and in that way they would have correctly and completely established the factual situation. It could have obtained bank account statements of those persons, to see whether they were actually paid that money, whether they spent that money afterwards and how they spent it. However, the court, on the basis of an incorrectly established factual situation, incompletely established the factual situation and issued a decision that is completely illegal, incorrect, and the reasons given are not sufficient in view of the decided facts, that is, they are completely illegal. I can freely say "Now, even though we have not received a copy of the verdict, we are filing an appeal within the legal deadline and I am certain that the Court of Appeal will overturn the acquittal," Radonjić pointed out.
What does the indictment say?
"The defendants are charged with having, contrary to the Decision on the method and criteria for resolving housing needs of officials, which prescribed that the resolution of housing needs be achieved according to the plan for resolving housing needs that contains the amount of funds for granting loans for improving housing conditions, that a loan for improving housing conditions can be granted in the amount of up to 15.000 euros, and that the amount of the loan is determined based on the scope of works assessed by the expert commission of the then Property Administration, without a plan for resolving housing needs and the assessment of the expert commission of the Administration, approved and granted housing loans for improving housing conditions for 119 public officials and employees in state bodies and state administration bodies, in amounts between 17.500 and 40.000 euros, thus obtaining a benefit for them and causing damage to the budget of Montenegro, in the total amount of 2.604,740,59 euros," Radonjić explained earlier.
In his closing statement a month ago, he said, among other things, that this trial was not politically motivated, and that he believed that the guilt of the accused had been unequivocally proven.
The defense attorney for defendant Predrag Bošković, attorney Mihailo Volkov, said in his closing argument that the "Apartments" case is a political process. The defense attorneys proposed to the court to acquit all defendants.
"From the beginning of the process, the defense has been emphasizing the fact that this is a politically motivated proceeding. We were encouraged to reach this conclusion by former Prime Minister Dritan Abazović, who, according to our knowledge, participated in this," Volkov said at the time.
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