Closing arguments in the case against former Supreme Court President Vesna and Miloš Medenica and other defendants have been scheduled for December 11th and 12th, after the court today rejected the request of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) to present additional Sky messages as evidence.
However, the court read the Viber message that the SDT had previously proposed, between Medenica and Vladan Vučelić. The message states: "Vesna, the revision has arrived at the Supreme Court. The judge is Natalija, based on Franović's lawsuit. If it can be returned to a new trial." Medenica replied: "Ok, it won't be until the fall."
This is why Medenica's defense attorney, attorney Zdravko Begović, objected and asked why the prosecution did not initiate separate proceedings in that case when he already believes that there is something controversial about it.
"This message was placed to create an impression among the public towards the end of the trial and to create an impression among the lay public about Vesna's illegal influence," said Begović. Medenica added that these messages have only one goal - exactly the one stated by her defense attorney - and that these messages "cannot point to anything," and that she is surprised that they were used as evidence.
Special Prosecutor Vukas Radonjić responded that this evidence was not proposed to compromise the public, but because Medenica is accused of being part of a criminal organization that influenced the judicial branch of government.
"If we look at these messages linguistically and objectively, someone is asking Medenica to return a decision for reconsideration, which she does not refuse, and as the president of the Supreme Court she does not have the authority to do so. So, part of the criminal organization had influence over the judicial power that it exercised through Medenica," said Radonjić.
Special Prosecutor Jovan Vukotić further explained why that message was presented as evidence.
"For clarification, Franović is mentioned in the messages, and during that period Zarija Franović was the director of the Port of Bar, which after privatization was separated into the Port of Bar and Port of Adria, where Franović moved," explained Vukotić.
Defense lawyers objected when the prosecutor said that the SDT would have more evidence in the form of Sky messages. They pointed out that, at one of the previous hearings, the SDT had announced more Sky messages instead of closing arguments.
Prosecutor Vukotic said that this was extensive material and that they had now noticed some of the messages because they had linked some of the names in the messages to certain things and people.
Lawyer Miloš Vuksanović stressed that this was evidence from an ambush. He told the court that SDT either does not have all the Sky messages or is hiding them, and that SDT also does not have or is hiding messages that are in favor of the defense. Defense lawyers agreed with him.
Prosecutor Vukotić said that these messages exist in the raw material submitted to the court, and that the court requested the most important messages to be separated. The lawyers proposed that the court conduct all the raw Sky material and read message by message, which prosecutors Radonjić and Vukotić agreed to, but the court refused. It also refused to conduct as evidence the additional Sky messages that the prosecutor cited today, with the explanation that SDT had these messages before and that, if they were important, it would have delivered them to the court at an earlier stage of the proceedings.
The court previously agreed to re-hear financial and economic expert Milenko Popović on the circumstances of the damage caused to the state by cigarette smuggling from the Free Customs Zone in the Port of Bar, that is, whether the budget was damaged by 2,7 million euros.
Popović stated today that there is no evidence that the cigarettes in question, which are part of the charges, left Montenegro, nor that they were sold in Montenegro.
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