What the High Court claims on 190 pages in its acquittal verdict for the murder of Post Office worker Ljubiša Mrdak, prosecutor Radmila Gačević refutes on 17. She is seeking the annulment of the verdict and a retrial. The lawyer for the Mrdak family believes that Judge Radovanović's verdict is superficial and not made in accordance with the principles of criminal procedure.
"I can say that it is in a way scandalous. He observed the isolated behavior of each of the participants in this criminal act, and did not create a whole, so if he had done so, if he had put it all together into one whole, then the conclusion would have been that they committed the crime," explained Dragomir Miško Ćalasan.
The lawyer for the Mrdak family is questioning the fact that the judge did not accept as evidence the sunshade, which allegedly fell out of the robber's car, on which the DNA of the accused Petar Zolak was found, because the witness retracted his earlier statement.
"And even if that statement did not exist, then a logical question arises: where did that object come from at the scene and where did the DNA traces come from, from one of the perpetrators, Zolak Petar," he adds.
Prosecutor Gačević is of the same opinion.
"The court's conclusion that traces of Svjetlanović and Miljković would not have been found on the sunshade if it had been from their car is illogical, given that it is not necessary, regardless of the fact that they were in the vehicle, for them to have had physical contact with the sunshade in the vehicle," the Higher State Prosecutor's Office states in its appeal.
The court stated that it could not even determine which of the defendants sprayed the workers with pepper spray, who hit Dragiša Dendić with a rifle butt, and which of them killed Mrdak.
"The reason is that everyone was wearing masks. If someone is wearing a mask, you can't tell it's Svjetlanović, it's Zolak," Ćalasan believes.
The prosecution also states that this reasoning of the court is absolutely unacceptable and contrary to case law, because it is enough for each accused to want and be involved in the commission of a criminal offense. Ćalasan believes that the court was not at all active in proving the allegations in the indictment, or rather its verifications, and this is also the position of the Higher Prosecutor's Office.
"Whether the vehicle is white, whether it is a Qashqai or not. He then had to hire a traffic expert, and we have over 30, if not more, recordings of that vehicle moving around Nikšić. That it is a united professional group that does everything to perfection and organizes each of its actions in a professional manner," the lawyer points out.
The appeals will be decided by the Court of Appeal, which can confirm the acquittal, quash it and order a retrial, or, less likely, modify it and issue a conviction itself. However, it is not known when the appeal will be decided, because this is possible, as lawyer Ćalasan claims, only when all the defendants, who are mostly citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and are at large, have been served with the appeals of their families and the prosecution.
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