Mitar Knežević, Stojan Albijanić, Nemanja Kaurin Miljković, Petar Zolak, Srđan Svjetlanović, David Banjac and Stefan Regojević will be tried again for the robbery at the Nikšić Post Office, during which security worker Ljubiša Mrdak was killed.
This was decided by the Court of Appeal, overturning the first-instance verdict of the Podgorica Higher Court, which acquitted Knežević, Albijanić, Kaurin Miljković, Zolak, Svjetlanović, Banjac and Regojević of charges.
The Appellate Court Panel accepted the appeals of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica, the attorney of the Mrdak family, and the authorized representative of the Post of Montenegro:
"In light of these appeals and ex officio, I revoked the judgment of the Higher Court in Podgorica, K.br. 58/22 of 25 February 2025, and returned the case to the first instance court for retrial."
"By the first-instance verdict, the accused Mitar Knežević, Stojan Albijanić, Nemanja Kaurin Miljković, Petar Zolak, Srđan Svjetlanović, David Banjac and Stefan Regojević were acquitted of the charge of committing the criminal offense of robbery in co-perpetration due to the fact that it was not proven that the accused committed the act for which they were charged. The injured Mrdak family and the Post of Montenegro AD Podgorica were referred to regular civil litigation in order to exercise their property rights claim," the Court of Appeals said in a statement.
They explain that in the appeals decision-making process, they determined that the appeals were well-founded in indicating that significant violations of the provisions of criminal procedure were committed during the first-instance judgment and in the judgment itself, which this court also established, paying attention to them ex officio.
"The significant violations relate to the fact that the first-instance verdict did not state the reasons for the decisive facts, and those that were stated were completely unclear and significantly contradictory. In addition to the above, the Court of Appeal concluded that the appeals filed were well-founded and that the factual situation was incompletely established," it states.
Bonus video:
