Accused I. Š. will remain in custody, after she was suspected of forcing her four-year-old daughter to beg, the Court of Appeals has ruled.
The child's stepfather, S. R, will also remain behind bars, as the ruling states, due to suspicion that he also committed a criminal offense - human trafficking.
The court dismissed as unfounded the appeal of their legal counsel, who requested that, due to a significant violation of the provisions of criminal procedure, the contested decision be revoked and the case returned for a new decision or that it be modified and the detention lifted.
"By assessing the evidence from the case file of the first instance court, to the level of reasonable suspicion, this court also finds that the defendants RS and I. Š. are reasonably suspected of having committed the criminal offense charged against them in the indictment of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office," the Court of Appeals states.
They add that the defendants, as is reasonably suspected, on January 24, 2025, by abusing the relationship of dependency, for the purpose of begging, recruited the injured girl, born on February 8, 2021:
"By taking advantage of her dependent relationship as a child in relation to them, because the injured party is the daughter of the defendant I. Š., and the defendants S. and R. are her stepfathers, with whom she lives in a family union, in a way that, as is reasonably suspected, together by prior agreement, they brought the injured party... to beg for money, which, as is reasonably suspected, she did, by the defendant bringing the injured party to the entrance to the catering facilities on the city square where the guests of the premises gave her money, while the defendant SR, as is reasonably suspected, during that time supervised and kept the injured party under surveillance from a suitable distance, monitoring her movements and behavior, so that upon leaving the aforementioned facilities, the injured party, at the request of the defendant Š. I., handed over the money to her, after which, as is reasonably suspected, they all went together to the 'I' market where they traded with that money, and took the rest of the money for themselves," the court's decision states.
"The defendants are accused of taking advantage of the child's dependency on them and bringing the girl to the entrance of a restaurant on the city square, where the restaurant's guests gave her money," the court's decision states.
Examining the first-instance decision, the court determined that the contested decision was not affected by significant violations of the provisions of criminal procedure...
"In the opinion of this court, the first instance court, in the explanation of the contested decision, and in relation to the grounds for detention under Article 175, paragraph 1, item 1 of the CPC, pursuant to which the detention of the defendants SR and Ii Š. was extended, provided sufficient, clear and valid reasons, which this court also accepts and to which it refers the appellants. Furthermore, taking into account the grounds on which the appeals were filed, this court examined whether the first instance court committed a material violation of the provisions of criminal procedure under Article 386, paragraph 2 of the CPC, and determined that the contested decision was not affected by these violations either, since when issuing the contested decision it correctly applied all the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure relevant for lawful and proper decision-making in the specific case."
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