State Prosecutor at the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Kotor, Srđa Jovanović, was sentenced to five months in prison in a retrial for abuse of office, it was unofficially announced to Vijesti.
The first-instance verdict was pronounced in the Podgorica Higher Court.
The Court of Appeals overturned an identical verdict at the end of February, finding that the decision was made in significant violation of the criminal procedure provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Jovanović is accused of making illegal official notes about the interrogation - according to the Special State Prosecutor's Office, the defendant, as a public official, illegally exploited his official position to obtain a benefit for Duško Pavićević.
Mensur Uke and Hakan Arikan, who were charged with the criminal offense of abuse of official position through aiding and abetting, were acquitted.
In the first court proceedings, the judge, while pronouncing the verdict, referred to the testimony of witnesses, but also to the testimony of the accused.
The defendants Mensur Uka and Hakan Arikan deliberately assisted the defendant Srđa Jovanović in the commission of the criminal offense of abuse of official position from Article 416 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of Montenegro, in such a way that acting contrary to the provisions of Article 16 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which prescribes that the state prosecutor is obliged to truthfully and completely determine the facts that are important for making a legal and fair decision.
The indictment states that prosecutor Jovanović interrogated defendant Hakan Arikan in one case as a suspect, and then on the same day, interrogated him in another case as a victim, with an interpreter, defendant Mensur Uka, present during both interrogations.
"On that occasion, the defendant Hakan Arikan, among other things, stated in both records: 'Then Duško grabbed me by the head, in the area of my ears, shook me and hit me several times,'" the indictment states.
It is added that the prosecutor then, with the intention of obtaining a benefit for Pavićević and not taking criminal action against him, created new official documents - the minutes of the interrogation of the suspect and the minutes of the interrogation of the witness - in which he entered false information.
In them, the SDT claims, he stated that Hakan Arikan was questioned as a suspect, or rather as a witness - injured party, and that he stated: "Regarding the medical documentation, which I then took out and attached to the case files, I can say that I did so at the request and insistence of members of the Tivat Police Station, whereby the medical reports in question stated certain scratches on my body and a broken eardrum. However, I would like to emphasize that I had all of this before, and considering that I am a professional underwater fisherman, both those scratches and the broken eardrum occurred even earlier."
The SDT states that such official documents, with false content, were then signed by Hakan Arikan and Mensur Uka...
"After which, on 14 February 2022, the defendant Srđa Jovanović destroyed official documents: the record of the interrogation of the suspect Kt.br. 371/20 dated 8 February 2022 and the record of the interrogation of the witness-injured party Kt.br. 366/20 dated 8 February 2022, while the official documents with false content served him not to order a medical examination of the injuries sustained by the defendant Hakan Arikan and to issue a decision dismissing the criminal complaint against Duško Pavićević for the criminal offense of grievous bodily harm under Article 151 of the Criminal Code of Montenegro, and thus obtained a benefit from not conducting criminal proceedings against him," the indictment states.
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