She claims she sent an email, but the prosecutor did not receive it: Proceedings against Aćimić linked to the Medenica case

Trial of former secretary of the Judicial Council Vesna Aćimić, accused of abuse of office and obstruction of evidence, was postponed yesterday at the Basic Court in Podgorica, after she submitted an email she claims she sent to the then disciplinary prosecutor. Muzafer Hadžajlić, but that he never received it.

The court ordered that he be heard as a witness. Miloš Žižić, so the main hearing was postponed.

The prosecution accuses Aćimić of failing to act upon a notification from a group of citizens that a lawsuit should be filed against a judge of the Basic Court in Rožaje, as the then secretary of the Judicial Council. Milosav Zekić is conducting criminal proceedings before the Basic Court in Kotor. According to the prosecution, he should have informed the competent authorities in the Judicial Council, which decides on the possible temporary suspension of the judge from office.

Aćimić is also charged with later, in the proceedings against the former President of the Supreme Court Vesne Medenica, the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) and the High Court in Podgorica did not submit the requested original files of the case.

Her defense claims that she forwarded the information about Zekić to Hadžajlić, and yesterday she submitted an email to the court that she claims confirms this, stating that Hadžajlić did not receive it for technical reasons.

The same case was previously part of the proceedings against the former President of the Supreme Court Vesne Medenica, who was also a member of the Judicial Council at the time. She was sentenced to six months in prison in a repeated trial for abuse of office.

The indictment against Medenica stated that, after receiving information from the Kotor court about that judge, she stated on the inside cover of the file: "Until the end of the proceedings, I do not find it appropriate and justified to take any action, a family dispute," after which the case was archived.

The prosecution claimed in that case that Medenica failed to inform the president and other members of the Judicial Council that criminal proceedings had been initiated against Zekić, even though that body was deciding whether the conditions for the judge's temporary suspension from office were met.

A former employee of the Judicial Council also testified in the proceedings against Medenica. Daliborka Vuksanović who was working on complaints during that period. She said that after a group of citizens reported Zekić, she requested a statement from the president of the Basic Court in Kotor, before which the proceedings against the judge were being conducted. When the statement arrived, she asked Aćimić whether she should prepare the material for the session of the Judicial Council. According to her testimony, Aćimić first told her to wait, and then in April 2019 ordered her to archive the case.

In her testimony before the court, Vuksanović stated that she archived the case, but that she wrote on the cover of the file that she was doing so on Aćimić's orders, because, as she said, she did not trust her and believed that Aćimić did not want to take responsibility for even the smallest detail. She also said that later her colleague Miroslava Raičević said that this note "saved" her, because Aćimić allegedly wanted to blame her.