The Higher Court in Podgorica has rejected as unfounded the appeals of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) against that court's decision to terminate the detention of Ranko Ubović and Vladan Ivanović.
SDT claims that the court's decision was unlawful.
"The Special State Prosecutor's Office has appealed the decisions of the investigating judge of the Higher Court in Podgorica, by which the detention of the defendants RU and VI was terminated and the defendants were ordered to be immediately released. Paragraph IV of the operative part of the decision determines that the appeal does not stay the execution of the decision. The Special State Prosecutor's Office essentially disputes the legality of the contested decision, in the part of the legal instruction in paragraph IV of the operative part, which determines that the appeal does not stay the execution of the decision, essentially stating that in that part the decision of the investigating judge is contrary to the provision of Article 416 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which stipulates that filing an appeal against the decision postpones the execution of the decision, unless otherwise stipulated by this Code, while on the other hand the provision of Article 178 of the Criminal Procedure Code does not stipulate that an appeal against the decision of the investigating judge on the termination of detention does not stay the execution of the decision," announced the independent public relations advisor of the Higher Court in Podgorica, Ivana Vukmirović.
In assessing the appeal's allegations, the criminal panel, as she said, first assumed that the defendants were remanded in custody on the grounds of detention under Article 175, paragraph 1, item 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and then extended the investigation for another two months on the same grounds of detention.
"Accordingly, since during the investigation the persons for whose questioning the defendants were ordered to be detained were heard as witnesses, the reasons for the further duration of detention on the aforementioned grounds for detention ceased, which was also stated by the Special State Prosecutor's Office in the act Kti-S. No. 23/25 of 05.12.2025. In this regard, the provision of Article 175, paragraph 2 of the CPC stipulates that detention shall be lifted as soon as evidence is provided, which legal provision is in accordance with the principle of personal liberty stipulated in Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantees the right to liberty and security of person, while Article 174, paragraph 3 of the CPC stipulates that detention shall be lifted during the entire procedure as soon as the reasons on the basis of which it was ordered cease to exist. Therefore, by hearing the named witnesses, the danger of influencing the witnesses was eliminated, which also terminated the procedural and legal basis for the further holding of the defendants in custody." "Detention, and accordingly, the criminal non-trial panel of this court is of the opinion that the decisions of the investigating judges, which terminated the detention of the defendants and released them, are correct and lawful," the statement reads.
Moreover, Vukmirović adds, in the event that the circumstances for which the detention was ordered cease to exist, the prosecution has an obligation to react and initiate the termination of the detention, even if this is not explicitly requested by the defense, because further detention of the defendant without a justifiable reason would be unlawful.
"Therefore, although the appeal insists that there is no provision in paragraph IV of the operative part, that the appeal does not stay the execution, the panel emphasizes that this is a procedural issue, which does not concern the merits of the decision on detention, nor does it affect the legality of the decision, which is why the panel finds that the appeal's allegations in this regard are unfounded, and therefore decided as in the operative part of the decision, i.e. rejected the SDT's appeals as unfounded," the statement reads.
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