Moldovan citizen Svetlana Chebotarenko For eight years, no one has been looking for her and she can come to Montenegro without fear of going to prison - the arrest warrant for her was lifted in October 2018, the Police Directorate responded to Vijesti.
Although the red warrant has not been in effect since then, that security institution is under the leadership of Veselin Veljović wings are looking for the main character of the "S. Č." affair that stirred up Montenegro at the beginning of this century.
Chebotarenko was sentenced to one year in prison by a decision of the Higher Court for false testimony in late December 2014. An arrest warrant was issued for her in late January 2015, and was lifted three years later due to the absolute statute of limitations.
"The checks determined that the person S. Č., a Moldovan citizen, is registered in the records of the National Central Bureau of Interpol Podgorica, and that she was the subject of processing within the jurisdiction of this NCB, and that this person was previously sought internationally. Currently, there is no active warrant for S. Č. within the jurisdiction of the Montenegrin NCB," the UP said at the end of March, answering questions about whether Čebotarenko is in the records of the Montenegrin police as a wanted person, and whether a national or international warrant is currently active for her.
They also explained when the warrant was lifted and on what grounds:
"S. Č. was previously the subject of a red international arrest warrant, issued on 30. 1. 2015 by the NCB Interpol Podgorica, with the aim of locating and detaining him, based on the order of the Basic Court in Podgorica, as well as the request of the Security Department Podgorica. The aforementioned red INTERPOL arrest warrant for the named person was suspended and ceased to be active due to absolute statute of limitations, based on the order of the competent court dated 30. 10. 2018, as well as the request of the Security Department Podgorica dated 7. 11. 2018," the responses from the UP say.
The security institution also explained what they did after an international arrest warrant was issued for Čebotarenko - they notified all INTERPOL member states. They state that they were also notified when the search was suspended.
"As already stated in previous responses, when the aforementioned INTERPOL Red Notice was issued, the INTERPOL General Secretariat was informed about it, as well as all INTERPOL member states through their NCBs. The suspension of the notice was also forwarded to the competent international authorities. Therefore, the aforementioned Red Notice was suspended due to the onset of absolute limitation and the order of the competent court," said the Police Directorate headed by Lazar Scepanovic.
The main actor in the "S. Č." affair was tried in absentia for giving false testimony in criminal proceedings in which she, as a victim of human trafficking, testified about her physical abuse, forced prostitution, and resale...
After the sentencing, three non-governmental organizations - Action for Human Rights, Safe Women's House and the Center for Women's Rights announced that the Moldovan woman was not provided with a fair trial, but a trial in absentia, which had all the elements of state persecution of a victim of abuse, forced prostitution and trafficking. to people.
The proceedings against Chebotarenko were conducted based on a complaint Zoran Piperović i Ekrem Jasavić, whom she identified as organizers of forced prostitution.
Former Deputy Chief State Prosecutor, now attorney Zoran Piperović, emphasized that the Moldovan woman was his, Jasavić's, Irfan Kurpejović i Bajram Orahovac falsely accused of committing the crimes of human trafficking and incitement to prostitution.
The Moldovan woman, in her statements from 2002, labeled Piperović as a pimp, claiming that he encouraged prostitution.
In her testimony, she also mentioned a private "party" on Sveti Stefan, which, she claimed, was attended by the then Prime Minister. Milo DjukanovicHe stated that the S. Č. case was “invented for the political purpose of preventing the independence of Montenegro”.
Piperović was arrested on December 1 of that year on charges of pimping and trafficking S. Č. and was dismissed from the position of deputy state prosecutor.
He spent two months behind bars on suspicion of being the organizer of the sexual exploitation and abuse of a Moldovan woman.
An investigation was launched against him, Kurpejović, Jasavić and Orahovac in 2003.
That case was closed in court when, on the last day of May 2003, the then-primary prosecutor Zoran Radonjic announced "that due to lack of evidence he cannot bring charges against the defendants in the trial."
Judge of the High Court Ana Vuković On June 2 of that year, it issued a decision to suspend the investigation.
Such an epilogue was criticized by experts from the Council of Europe and the OSCE in a special report.
The Supreme Court refused to review the legality of the verdict a decade ago.
The Supreme Court of Montenegro rejected a request for protection of legality filed a decade ago against the verdict that sentenced a Moldovan woman to a year in prison for false testimony.
This was answered to Vijesti yesterday by the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office (VDT), headed by Milorad Marković.
"Regarding your questions, we would like to inform you that on July 16, 2015, the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office filed a request for protection of legality before the Supreme Court of Montenegro against the aforementioned judgment of the Higher Court in Podgorica. The Supreme Court of Montenegro rejected the aforementioned request for protection of legality as unfounded," the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office said.
The request was filed after the High Court overturned the suspended sentence and sentenced Moldovan to one year in prison.
Although former Supreme State Prosecutor Ivica Stanković refused to answer questions about the request for protection of legality in 2019, the verdict that it was unfounded was issued on September 22, 2015.
It was passed by a panel chaired by Judge Radule Kojović, which also included Petar Stojanović and Svetlana Vujanović.
According to the verdict, which Vijesti has access to, during the session of the council, the case files were reviewed, "the contested verdict was examined within the limits prescribed by Article 441, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the allegations of the submitted request and the statement given in the session of the council were assessed, after which the council determined that the request was unfounded."
The provision they then invoked stipulated that the Supreme Court, when deciding on a request for protection of legality, would limit itself only to examining the violation of the law to which the State Prosecutor referred in his request.
The Supreme State Prosecutor's Office wrote in its request that it believes that the second-instance verdict committed a significant violation of the provisions of criminal procedure "because the second-instance court did not state in its decision the circumstances it took into account when determining the sentence, which, according to the state prosecutor, it was obliged to do pursuant to Article 379, paragraph 8 of the CPC."
The Supreme Court then determined that the second-instance verdict was not affected by a material violation of the provisions of criminal procedure:
"This is because the circumstances that the court took into account when determining the sentence were stated in the first-instance verdict, and the second-instance court was not obliged to repeat them in accordance with Article 379, paragraph 8 of the CPC, because that would mean unnecessary formalism that would only burden the second-instance verdict. In the specific criminal case, as already indicated in the previous section, the first-instance court imposed a prison sentence on the defendant, but it only confirmed that sentence and imposed a suspended sentence on the defendant, while the second-instance court imposed the prison sentence determined by the first-instance court and sentenced her to an effective prison sentence, finding that only that sentence could achieve the purpose of imposing criminal sanctions, for which the second-instance court gave reasons," the verdict states.
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