Before a special panel, presided over by Judge Nada Rabrenović at the Higher Court in Podgorica, the trial began on the indictment of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) against Radoje P. Zvicer from Kotor and Nikola V. Vušović, known as Džoni from Vračar, from Belgrade, for the criminal offense of creating a criminal organization, and members of the criminal organization Mario M. Milošević from Podgorica, Radovan L. Mujović from Nikšić, Ivan Z. Biletić from Berane, Aleksandar B. Ćetković, permanently residing in Budva, Davor S. Kordić with a residence in Budva, Damir S. Mandić from Podgorica and Branko R. Simić from Užice, who is on the run.
The indictment alleges that, in the second half of 2020, Radoje Zvicer and Nikola Vušović organized a criminal organization that planned to kill Marko Ljubiša, known as Khan, in January 2021.
The prosecution claims that the defendant Biletić was responsible for ensuring that the defendants Strahinja Savić and Lazar Ilić, members of the criminal organization, entered the territory of Montenegro from Serbia outside the border crossings, avoiding border control and placing them in safe locations, in order to carry out their tasks in the territory of Budva, which were assigned to them by the organizers of the criminal organization.
The accused Mario Milošević gave a detailed defense before the court.
"I understand what the indictment charges me with. I do not admit to committing the criminal offense I am charged with, nor my guilt. I am not guilty, I am not a member of any organization, not even a criminal one. No one has ever asked me about it, nor offered me anything. I have not committed any criminal offense, which is not stated in the indictment itself when I read it. The indictment speaks of association for the purpose of committing a criminal offense or offenses, and yet none are committed. There are elements that characterize a criminal offense, so I ask the court what criminal offense I committed, what damage it caused to someone or what benefit I had from it. I would ask this court to provide the elements of the criminal offense and say what specifically socially bad consequence resulted from my actions. I claim that there are no basic elements that constitute the criminal offense I am charged with in this indictment. The only thing we have in the indictment is that the prosecutor is dealing with the prediction that someone would commit a criminal offense sometime in the future and that they would join forces for that, even though there is no acts. The prosecution bases its unfounded claims on some messages it claims to be mine, which it says I wrote and which I see in the indictment for the first time. I believe that the claim about international legal assistance is a criminal offense that this prosecution is making because of the way it all started from the start. According to a joint report by 'Europol' and 'Eurojust', only a few European countries have specific regulations regarding the secret access and decoding of encrypted electronic communications, which are examples of online surveillance, hacking into a computer system or the use of technical means to access digital evidence. Such measures typically include the secret installation of special software on devices, either physically so that the investigation has access to the device or remotely by inserting a virus or "Trojan" that copies all the content from the device and forwards it to the police or the prosecution. This basically refers to hacking or hacking, although this term is not used in the criminal code, our prosecution has embellished it to make it seem acceptable to our courts, although according to our ZKP it is a criminal offense. "However, there is no general consensus at all on the acceptance of such measures, primarily due to fears that they would represent an excessive intervention in the rights of individuals. Therefore, the question is whether data from the SKY ECC platform can be used in countries that do not have equivalent investigations capable of obtaining such data," Milošević stated in his defense.
After a short break, he continued his defense.
“An affirmative answer would open the door to numerous manipulations, allowing a country whose legal framework does not allow such investigations to deliberately seek their implementation in other countries, thereby circumventing domestic rules of evidence. This would enable countries to obtain surveillance evidence materials relating to their citizens that would otherwise be unavailable under their domestic legal framework. Such a practice could potentially encourage so-called 'forum shopping' where investigative authorities deliberately seek an investigation in a country with significantly lower standards of fundamental rights protection, knowing that the results of the surveillance will be accepted. For example, if an investigation by State 'A' cannot obtain a warrant to enter a computer system because such a measure is not permitted by domestic law, it could ask State 'B' to carry out such a measure on citizens of State 'A'. In this way, domestic rules are circumvented, and the rule of law is threatened, especially legal certainty as one of its key elements. Legal certainty requires that laws must be easily accessible and predictable, that they should be published in advance before their application, and that their effects must be foreseeable. Investigations by their very nature restrict fundamental rights and any such restriction must be foreseen or prescribed by law. The European Court of Human Rights has established that the phrase 'prescribed by law' means that the measure must have a legal basis in domestic law and that the law in question must be of sufficient quality, accessible to the person concerned and foreseeable in its effects. If the investigation is not prescribed by domestic law, this principle is violated because foreign law is not sufficiently accessible with the necessary precision for domestic citizens. The rule of law requires that all public authorities must act within legal constraints that uphold democratic values and respect fundamental rights. The law must clearly define the scope of discretion granted to the executive branch and the manner in which it may be exercised. Otherwise, countries could obtain surveillance materials relating to their citizens that would be inaccessible under their domestic legal basis, thereby nullifying legal certainty. In general, intelligence information is not collected under the same rules of evidence as criminal evidence because it serves a completely different purpose, which is the case here, while evidence is specifically collected for criminal investigations. Intelligence is primarily collected for national security purposes. Shared intelligence remains the property of the originating agency and cannot be further disclosed or used by the receiving agency without explicit written consent. In some studies, experts argue that data collected through hacking, here I mean legal experts, should be treated as intelligence information to guide the course of the investigation and should not be presented in court as evidence. Similarly, given the large number of suspects and data collection, it is more likely that the SKY ECC operation can be classified as a criminal intelligence operation aimed at collecting, processing and analyzing information about criminal acts or criminal activities. I would like to give an example: one of the first cases where SKY ECC was used as part of the evidentiary material was in the case against Kašćelan, Radonjić and others, where it was written in the ruling of the investigating judge, the then Miroslav Bašović, that this was clearly operational information that could not be given to a third party, and it was clear what it was about. In France, this data, I mean SKY ECC as well as "EncroChat", is classified as a state or military secret. In any case, labeling the acquisition of data as a state secret and selectively sharing this material with other countries raises doubts about the legal nature of the SKY ECC data. If treated as evidence, the question arises as to whether such data can be lawfully collected through mass interception of communications outside French territorial jurisdiction. In contrast, if it is treated as intelligence information, the issue is whether it can be legitimately used as evidence in criminal proceedings. National courts are responsible for ensuring respect for the rights of the defence and are obliged to disregard information and evidence if the defence cannot effectively comment on it even though such evidence has a predominant impact on the establishment of the facts. This is from a decision of the European Court of Justice. Point one of that decision states that "the defense must be given the opportunity to effectively comment on every piece of evidence, including the SKY ECC and "EncroChat" materials." Point 2 of the decision states "that the material from "EncroChat" and SKY ECC must not have a predominant influence on the establishment of the facts". In that decision of the European Court of Justice, in the explanation of point one, it is clearly stated what it means for the defense to effectively comment on each piece of evidence, and it is stated that "the data in SKY ECC is presented in Excel tables classified by the courts or prosecutors' offices as documents obtained as part of international legal assistance." Although the defense can formally comment on this data, their ability to do so effectively is limited given that the data in the Excel spreadsheets can be easily modified and the method of collecting this data remains unknown. For the defense's commentary to be effective, the defense must understand exactly how the evidence was obtained so that they can challenge its legality and confront possible abuses by law enforcement. If we have a conversation, for example, and only one line of two words is extracted from it, for example, "I was joking," it is no longer a joke in the remaining conversation. The explanation of the second condition where SKY material cannot have a predominant influence on the establishment of facts implies that such “evidence” must not have a predominant influence. Since judges rely on their free judicial discretion and evaluate all the evidence presented, it can be challenging to determine whether a single piece of evidence had a decisive impact. It is common for evidence to be corroborated by other evidence and materials, and deciphering a message, even if it is authentic, is rarely the sole basis for convictions. Additional investigative methods such as data production orders issued to telecommunications service providers to collect user and location data, confiscation of encrypted phones, correlation of the defendant's nickname and other sources of evidence with SKY ECC messages, and obtaining testimony or even confessions are also commonly used. Multiple sources of evidence can corroborate and strengthen a case, meaning that each piece of evidence is supported by another. However, a problem may arise when messages from the SKY ECC platform are the only available evidence. In such cases, this material should be excluded because it undoubtedly has an overriding fact-finding influence. Given that there is no other supporting evidence, this should not be seen as an apology to the defendants, but as a sign that the investigative authorities were not thorough, even though, despite the valuable data from the SKY ECC platform, they failed to collect more supporting data or evidence. Despite this, our courts unconditionally accepted SKY ECC as evidence even though our authorities were not informed about the surveillance of its citizens and such interception could not be authorized under our law, moreover hacking, infiltration of computer viruses is a criminal offense under our law. In the absence of an investigative measure comparable to the capture of computer data through the installation of technical devices, the courts have treated the data from SKY ECC as written documents obtained through international legal assistance, which continues to equate computer data with documents despite common sense and precedents in other countries confirming that immaterial computer data by their structure and form cannot be considered traditional legal documents. Defense attorneys' requests to determine how this information was obtained in France were rejected, and the courts relied on the assumption that the evidence was obtained lawfully, citing the general principle of mutual trust. In the legal system of another state, it is generally accepted as a rule of international law, however, the problem is that the principle of international trust is not a general principle of international law nor is it established in any provision of our law. Instead, this is a cornerstone of the criminal practice of the European Union and is valid only within the European Union, while courts in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany can rely on mutual trust, courts in our country or other candidate countries still do not have the legal basis for this, until they become full members of the European Union. Finally, it is paradoxical that courts in candidate countries are calling for mutual trust, to unconditionally accept evidence from the SKY ECC platform, while at the same time claiming that the principles established by the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union on SKY ECC and "EncroChat" apply only to European Union member states. It would be extremely illogical for the Court of Justice of the European Union to impose these requirements exclusively on the Member States of the European Union, and not on the candidate countries, as this would imply that the "EIN" system is stricter than the traditional system of international legal assistance. Given that the principles set out in the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union on "EncroChat" and SKY ECC support the rule of law and legal certainty, fair trial and national sovereignty, they should serve as a benchmark not only for candidate countries for the European Union, but for all countries committed to European values and the protection of sovereignty, especially in today's era of mass surveillance. I could talk about this for a long time, that is, about SKY ECC communication, because decisions have already been made on this issue in Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and other countries, which clearly state the invalidity and unusability of SKY ECC data. I will certainly quote you the decision of the Higher Court of the Canton of Zurich, second instance criminal chamber, case number SB 24, in the decision dated 15.08.2025. which states under paragraph I that it was decided that "The defendant's request for a retrial pursuant to Article 409 of the CPC is rejected". Under paragraph II "SKY ECC data available in the files are unusable and are removed from the case file". I urge the court to obtain this decision and for the court to address this issue in detail if you believe we have the right to a fair trial. I would like to point out that in this case there is a witness who spoke in detail, in a case that is related to this case and which was concluded in the first instance, and he may now be the defendant, but he initially told everything he knows and I know that he spoke in detail about everything before the police and the court, so I think that if I were involved in any action, I would probably be mentioned by that witness who told all the details, and who, I repeat, does not mention me anywhere. I ask this court to respect the decisions of the European Court of Justice as they were made, and not as the prosecution is trying to reformulate them. We have reached a situation where anyone in a position of power can print out an Excel spreadsheet without any material evidence, take pictures of your house, fence, yard, car, or any of your family members, find out where you went for a check-up or when you went to the cinema, and strike up a conversation with you, leaving you with no hope of escape and no more need for any evidence. I think a decision should be made along the lines of the Zurich Cantonal Court in Switzerland and such SKY ECC data should be declared unusable and removed from the case. I think we should also take into account the decision of the French courts, which have currently "frozen" the courts' actions in SKY ECC cases and requested an opinion from the European Court of Justice, which is expected in the coming months. I would like to note that this is the same France whose unconditional trust our prosecution is appealing to. "I thank you for listening carefully and I hope that this panel will respect the decisions of the courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg and not the blanket interpretations of the prosecution, as they see fit," concluded the accused Milošević.
Mujović: I didn't use the Sky app
Defendant Radovan Mujović stated before the court that he is not a member of any criminal group.
"I have not used the SKY application. I have been serving a prison sentence for seven years. In one indictment, I am the organizer of a criminal organization, and in most of the indictments filed against me, I am a member of a criminal organization. And what kind of member of a criminal group am I when I organize a criminal group, and I mean this indictment and other indictments, and according to the indictment, I do all of this from detention and go to South America, Africa, Budva, etc. I stay in Suža all the time and only come to court. That is all I have to say," said Mujović.
The accused Ivan Biletić stated that he did not admit to committing the criminal offense charged against him in the indictment, nor to his guilt.
"I am not guilty, hypothetically if all these alleged messages are true, I agree that if it is stated anywhere that I am thinking and not planning to commit the murder of any person, I will sign to sentence me to the maximum sentence prescribed for this criminal offense. I have been on trial for this same criminal offense before the High Court in Belgrade for two years," he stated.
Mandić: Judge as you wish.
The accused Damir Mandić stated in his defense that he did not understand what he was being charged with.
"I do not understand what the indictment charges me with. I did not help procure any phone, and it is a total lie that I became a member of any criminal organization. I saw what I am being charged with, but it has nothing to do with reality. I do not admit to committing the crime I am being charged with, nor to my guilt. I do not admit to committing the crime I am being charged with, I do not know how the prosecution came to the conclusion that I am being charged with this crime. Judge as you will and I have nothing more to say."
Defendant Aleksandar Ćetković said he did not commit the crime.
"I plead not guilty, I did not use a phone with the SKY application or encrypted mobile phones. I believe that during the period in which I am accused of committing a criminal offense, I was not even in Montenegro."
The accused Davor Kordić also stated that he did not admit to committing the criminal offense he is charged with.
"I completely deny committing the crime I am accused of. I deny that I had an encrypted phone, nor have I ever used it or the SKY application. I have nothing more to say," he said.
Bonus video:
