The Court of Appeals confirmed the verdict of the Higher Court in Podgorica, which sentenced Special State Prosecutor Lidija Mitrović to seven months in prison in a repeated court proceeding.
The Court of Appeal, after a public session of the panel on May 6, issued a verdict rejecting as unfounded the appeals of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, the defendant and her defense attorney, and upholding the verdict of the High Court of December 23, 2024.
This became a final verdict, finding Lidija Mitrović guilty of the continued criminal offense of abuse of official position and sentencing her to the aforementioned prison sentence.
"The Court of Appeal assessed that the first instance court, based on the evidence presented, correctly determined that the defendant, as an official - public official, special prosecutor in the SDT, illegally exploited her official position to obtain benefits for NP, ZB, SB and PR, acting contrary to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Rules on Deferred Criminal Prosecution, by issuing four decisions dismissing criminal charges against the aforementioned persons for the criminal offense of tax and contribution evasion, even though it was aware that these persons were reasonably suspected of having committed the criminal offense of tax and contribution evasion, for which the institute of deferred criminal prosecution cannot be applied," the Court of Appeal announced.
In their opinion, the first instance court gave clear reasons for its decision, which were fully accepted by the Court of Appeal.
"According to the Court of Appeal, the first instance court correctly determined and sufficiently evaluated all the facts, i.e. circumstances that influence the choice of the type of criminal sanction and that are important for the sentence to be greater or lesser, so in the opinion of the Court of Appeal, the imposed prison sentence of seven months is proportionate to the gravity of the criminal offense and the degree of guilt of the defendant, which is why it can rightly be expected that the purpose of punishment will be achieved with this prison sentence, i.e. that it will influence the defendant, but also others, not to commit criminal offenses in the future," they said.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal with detailed reasons will be published on the website of that institution.
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