The saga with judges from Bijelo Polje continued in the Podgorica Higher Court regarding the falsified verdict, which led to judge Dragan Mrdak ending up in the dock.
After Judge Ivan Adamović, his colleague from the Bijelo Polje High Court, Dragan Dašić, claims that they only deliberated once in the case against employees of a bank in Kolašin, when their house arrest was changed to nine months in Spuž. This refutes the defense of their colleague from the panel, Dragan Mrdak, who is on trial for subsequently falsifying a verdict and issuing a new one that triggered the statute of limitations, although abuse of office does not expire, thus granting them freedom.
"We deliberated on March 8th last year and never again. Absolutely never. When I took the new verdict in my hands, everything was clear to me, my whole life went through my mind. Studying, 28 years of judicial experience, what had befallen me," said Dašić.
"Aren't you ashamed? You bastard. We deliberated twice, not once. I'm not surprised by what you're saying, you don't even follow the deliberations," Mrdak reacted.
Dašić claims that the minutes of deliberations would be signed first by the reporting judge Mrdak, then by the presiding judge Adamović, and only then by him as a member of the panel, because his office is located on the floor below. The accused recorder Sonja Marković, who allegedly entered the falsified verdict in the deliberation book on Mrdak's orders, claims that they were never signed in that order, but always by the presiding judge last.
"It was precisely Judge Dragan Mrdak who, in his capacity as rapporteur, presented the status of the case files and proposed that the persons who were parties to the case be sentenced to effective imprisonment instead of house arrest," pointed out Stefan Jovanović, Mrdak's defense attorney.
Judge Amir Đokaj was interested in whether Dašić had read the operative part of the decision in which he had participated before signing it.
"Due to the volume of work, that's impossible. I don't read more than I do. The rule is that what is reported should be on paper. Because I need to take my glasses to read, sit down, and sometimes I'm in a hurry," Dašić replied.
However, everyone signed the minutes of deliberation and voting.
"There is a possibility that it is my signature. Sometimes I sign in the hallway, in the elevator, in the office. I always signed wherever Mrs. Marković showed me," said Dašić.
Jovanović claims that one simply cannot sign something that does not exist.
"If there is a signature on the minutes of deliberation and voting, it is a very, very simple conclusion. The deliberation and voting took place," he added.
Judge Dašić also told how court president Milan Smolović instructed them on what to do after the Special Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation.
"President Smolović told me a story about united brothers. He said that when people are united, everything is easy and God will help us not to fight each other. We just need to stay united," he added.
The trial continues on March 5.
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