Rožajac Safet Kalić, who was tried in absentia, was available to the High Court in Bijelo Polje before the verdict, but they did not want him, even though the trial was suspended for a year to await his possible extradition.
Also, before the acquittal for money laundering, that court knew that Kalić was sentenced to seven years in prison for drug trafficking in Germany, but did not take that into account when he acquitted him.
On September 17, 2015, Kalić was sentenced to seven years in prison for drug trafficking by the final judgment of the Provincial Court in Aachen, Germany. A few months later, he was acquitted of money laundering charges in Montenegro, and the panel of judges of the High Court in Bijelo Polje, of the Special Department for the trial of criminal offenses of organized crime and corruption, which included judges Vidomir Bošković, Gorica Đalović and Šefkija Đešević, was not seen.
In their first-instance verdict, it is written: "Since the accused was not extradited by the Montenegrin judicial authorities upon request, but the court was informed of the possibility of temporary extradition without a precisely determined time in which he would be extradited, it was decided to end the proceedings in the absence of the accused KS, with an assessment of fulfillment conditions for this in the form of the unavailability of that accused to our state authorities and the existence of other important reasons expressed through the duration of the proceedings, the consequences suffered by the other accused due to the non-completion of the proceedings, expressed through the limitation of certain of their rights limited by the surveillance measures that were adopted according to them and whose duration is indefinite it would not be justified, but it would offend their basic human rights."
The same was repeated by the Supreme Court and the panel, which included the president of the court, Vesna Medenica, and judges Radula Kojović, Miraš Radović, Hasnija Simovića and Stanka Vučinić.
Regarding the procedure for requesting the extradition of Safet Kalić, in response to questions from "Vijesti", the Ministry of Justice announced:
"The request for the extradition of the accused Safet Kalić was submitted to the competent authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany on March 10, 03, based on the European Convention on Extradition, for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings for the criminal offense referred to in Article 2015 paragraph 268 in connection with paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code, in in connection with Article 1 paragraph 49 of the Criminal Code.
In a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany dated June 25, 06, the Ministry of Justice was informed that the extradition was approved, under a suspended condition, because criminal proceedings against Safet Kalić are pending before the German authorities.
During the proceedings, the possibility of temporary handover of Safet Kalić to Montenegro was considered, but in a letter from the High Court in Bijelo Polje dated December 2, 12, the Ministry of Justice was informed that there was no need for temporary handover, of which the requested state was informed.
By the verdict of the High Court in Bijelo Polje Ks. no. 4/15-11 of 21 December 12, which became final on 2015 June 20, Safet Kalić was acquitted of the charge of having committed the extended criminal offense of money laundering from Article 06 paragraph 2016 in connection with paragraph 268 of the Criminal Code, in connection with Article 4 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code.
Since Safet Kalić's extradition was requested for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings in which he was legally acquitted of the criminal offense he was charged with, the request for extradition was withdrawn.
In this particular case, the procedure was conducted based on the provisions of the European Convention on Extradition. Article 19 paragraph 2 of the Convention provides that the requested party may temporarily hand over the requested person to the requesting party under conditions to be mutually agreed upon by the two parties. Article 22 of the aforementioned convention stipulates that unless otherwise specified by that convention, only the law of the requested party will be applied to the extradition procedure."
In the request for the protection of legality, which was rejected, the prosecution claimed that the trial in absentia of Safet Kalić, for which, according to their court, there were no conditions because the court did not fully determine that extradition was not possible, violated the right to a fair trial, regardless which ultimately resulted in an acquittal.
In that Request, it is written that on February 4, 2015, the High Court in Bijelo Polje sent a request to Germany to provide international legal assistance. That court was informed on July 3 that the German Government approved Kalić's extradition, but only after serving his sentence in Germany, and that they propose that the Montenegrin police take him by plane at the aerodrome in Cologne or Bonn, and that the competent Interpol services agree on the details.
On September 15, 2015, before receiving an answer to that request, the High Court in Bijelo Polje issued an order scheduling the main trial for October 26 and 27, 2015. At that hearing, the court stated that Kalić was being tried in absentia according to the decision of April 25, 2012, and did not inform the prosecution and Kalić's lawyers about the agreement with Germany, although in order to clarify those issues, it issued a decision to reopen the main trial.
In the period between the two main trials held, from October 26 to November 23, 2015, the High Court was informed on November 9 by a note from the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany that Safet Kalić was sentenced to seven years in prison for drug trafficking and that the High Court the court in Bijelo Polje approves the temporary surrender they requested.
In the request for the protection of legality, it is written that the High Court, instead of ending the extradition procedure which was brought to the very end, and in which almost all assumptions were fulfilled that Kalić should be tried in his presence or that it was indisputably established that he is not available, continued the main trial on November 23, where only some of the facts obtained in the international legal aid procedure were stated in the record, without giving the prosecution and lawyers the evidence that arrived in that procedure.
The Criminal Procedure Code prescribes the principle of mandatory attendance of the defendant at the trial, as he has the right to present his defense.
"In the verdict, the Supreme Court took a different position and stated that the right to defense was established in favor of the defendant, so their violation cannot be in favor of the defendant, whatever that means. Would Kalić's right to defense be violated, in this same situation, if a guilty verdict had been passed?" said one of the unofficial interlocutors of "Vijesti".
The fact that the High Court in Bijelo Polje informed the Ministry of Justice on December 2, 12 that there was no need for the temporary surrender of Safeta Kalić, and acquitted him of the charges 2015 days later, no one wanted to officially comment for "Vijesti".
One of the unofficial interlocutors said that the Supreme Court "introduced confusion for future judicial practice" with that position.
"Does the violation of the principle of mandatory attendance of the defendant at the trial now depend on whether an acquittal or a conviction verdict will be passed? Why did the court demand the extradition of Kalić for a year, exhausting the competent authorities for providing international legal assistance in both Montenegro and Germany, and then inexplicably ended the proceedings in the absence of the defendant? "The only question is, what does the decision of the court to conduct the proceedings without the defendant Kalić have to do with the passing of the personal verdict", said one of the interlocutors of "Vijesti".
No one wanted to speak publicly about the verdict against Kalić and the fact that he was acquitted of money laundering, although the court did not determine the origin of the cash in the amount of over three and a half million euros, which was paid directly into the accounts of the companies of the defendant Safet Kalić, his wife Emina and his brother Mersudin. It is not even clear why the court did not take into account Kalić's drug conviction in Germany, which he knew about, and in his judgment states that he was only "suspected of certain criminal offenses" there, but not that he was convicted.
Mersudin and Amina Kalić were arrested on July 27, 2011 on suspicion that they conspired from 2005 to June 2011 with the aim of concealing the way of obtaining money, which they knew was earned from drug dealing, through banking and financial operations. in Germany. The indictment was filed by the then special prosecutor Đorđina Ivanović. In the retrial, the indictment was represented by special prosecutor Tanja Žižić.
Safet, who was on the run until October 2014, avoided arrest in Montenegro. He was then arrested in Vienna, and later extradited to Germany, where he was convicted of drug trafficking.
In October 2016, the state began to return temporarily confiscated property to the Kalić family.
In June of last year, Safet Kalić filed three lawsuits against the state due to the damage caused to his property during the court proceedings.Lawyer: Safet Kalić in Rožaje as an "innocent" man
The lawyer of the Kalić family, Dragoljub Đukanović, confirmed to Television Vijesti that since the day before yesterday, Kalić has been in Rožaj as a "freed innocent man."
During the three years of hiding until 2014, Kalić often changed passports and identity. A fake Kosovo passport was also found with Kalić during his arrest.
"I can also say that the acquittal confirmed what the family, Safet Kalić, and I, and all of us who defended him, claimed was a completely innocent man and that there was no room for any accusation," said Đukanović.
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