Paović denied guilt.

I felt pressure from the media that covered the kilometers I traveled, as well as from some employees of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) who I believe were instructed and working with a political party and the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT).

Thus, at today's hearing at the Podgorica Higher Court, Nina Paović, former assistant to the Agency's director Jelena Perović, presented her defense.

She is charged with two aggravated criminal offenses - abuse of official position and the aggravated criminal offense of forgery of an official document.

Paović said that she does not admit to the crimes she is accused of.

She said that she had the authority to sign all the documents she signed, as well as the authority to sign all the payment requests that the indictment charges her with. She also said that the allegation in the indictment that, in agreement with Perović, she personally entered a number on an unregistered service contract, in order to falsely present that it was entered in the register, and then, with her own signature, on payment requests sent to the State Treasury of the Ministry of Finance, she approved the payment of the net compensation amount to the contractor from the ASK account under that contract, is unfounded.

"The indictment alleges that I wanted to hide that contract, which is not true, because it was stamped in the registry office and delivered to the accounting department for further implementation, and there are four employees in that department and five in the registry office, so it is not clear to me how and in what way I wanted to hide it from the Agency's employees," said Paović.

She also commented on the allegations in the indictment regarding the unlawful use of official position and exceeding the limits of official authority by Perović, which concern phones that were owned by ASK, and which Perović handed over for use to her minor daughter and her father, NL, with whom the defendant concluded service contracts, VP, the mother of the defendant Paović and Momo Radulović, who used the mobile phone even after the expiration of his mandate.

Paović explained that she had multiple official phones for her own safety, and that one of them was linked to her mother.

"I used my mother's phone when I didn't want the Special Police Department (SPO) and the SDT to monitor my conversations, because I had information that dozens of cases in which Perović and I acted were excluded from the Basic Court in Cetinje, finding faults in our work, but I still don't understand why the SDT needed my brother's divorce case, which was an amicable divorce," she said.

She pointed out that her safety was also threatened by punctured tires, that this happened to her on both her official and private cars, as well as Perović's.

"I was given that phone to use and chose it as a landline, for my safety. I used that phone to complete both private and professional obligations. I don't know when the phone was returned, I'm not sure if it was returned to the Agency, I don't know if it's still with my mother, I don't use that phone now, I was given it to use by the director who used those phones for the same reasons as me," she explained.

She also said that there was no act that required them to use phones only for official purposes, but that the Agency had contracts with mobile operators up to a certain amount, and that everything spent over that amount was paid for independently.

Lekić also helped with translation work

Paović also explained the role of Nikola Lekić, for whom, according to the indictment, Perović and Paović obtained material benefit by illegally exploiting their official positions by concluding a service contract with him, which was allegedly not registered.

According to the indictment, Lekić had duties related to technical assistance in compiling reports on inspections carried out, technical assistance in compiling statistical reports, assistance in sorting and arranging documentation, assistance in recording documentation, assistance in storing documentation in certain registers, preparation, organization and support in organizing official trips in the country and abroad, which was confirmed by Paović at today's hearing.

"In addition, on trips where it was just me, he helped me with translation because he speaks English and Italian fluently," she explained.

When asked by judge Simo Rašović whether there was anyone at the Agency who was involved in organizing official travel in accordance with the systematization of that institution, Paović said that there was a department for international cooperation.

"...After we barely managed to escape alive on our trip to Egypt due to how inadequate the hotel was and which department it had chosen, the director decided that Lekić, in addition to sorting the documentation, would also be involved in organizing the trip," said Paović.

She also said that she exercised her right to overtime, which related to working from home, because she could not arrive during working hours due to conducting administrative procedures, so she did not have time to conduct misdemeanor proceedings.

"We kept records of overtime hours in a table, that table was used to make decisions on the amount of overtime for all employees. The director controlled what was in the table and the decisions that were submitted to the office and then to the finance department," she explained.

Paović also pointed out that her mobile phone, as well as the phone of the second assistant director, Boris Vukašinović, was expertly examined in order to see how many hours they spent outside of working hours at the Agency and thus received compensation for overtime work - without them being familiar with the expert's identity and findings, and that in this way the principles of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) were violated and that the evidence was legally invalid.

"The criminal prosecution was not undertaken by the Chief Special Prosecutor (CSP) and the Special State Prosecutor, who were elected by the Prosecutorial Council (PSC), but by the prosecutor of the Basic State Prosecutor's Office, who was assigned to work in the SDT, for which reasons I believe she did not have the legitimacy to represent the indictment in question," said Paović.