The Special Prosecutor’s Office in Pristina filed a new indictment against the persons suspected of involvement in the murder of Oliver Ivanovic, defense lawyers confirmed for KoSSev.
The Court of Appeals in Pristina decided on September 25th to return the case of the murder of Oliver Ivanovic to the beginning, based on the appeals of the defense counsel.
“The indictment was returned to the Special Prosecutor’s Office for a review. That is, the time, place and manner of committing the crime must be determined and it should be confirmed whether there are grounds for suspicion that the persons charged with crimes actually did commit them,“ Jovana Filipovic, the lawyer of the defendant Silvana Arsovic, confirmed at the time.
The defense lawyers Faruk Korenica and Mahmut Halimi, however, confirmed in a statement KoSSev today that the Special Prosecutor’s Office filed a new indictment.
Faruk Korenica, the lawyer of the accused Nedeljko Spasojevic, said that he has not had insight into the new indictment so far, but that he was told it was filed and that it will be delivered to him later in the day.
He expressed disappointment with the Kosovo judiciary because this is the third indictment filed in one case, which he called „a precedent“.
I have been doing this job for 50 years but nothing like this has ever happened
Although he did not have access to the indictment, Korenica believes that the plaintiff failed to eliminate the shortcomings of the case – which were pointed out by the Court of Appeals.
„Based on the files at my disposal, I am absolutely certain that the prosecutor is unable to determine anything closer as ordered by the Court of Appeals. But we have to wait to get a copy of the indictment to determine if I am right or if it is something new that we did not know until now,“ Korenica added.
The lawyer of the accused Marko Rosic, Mahmut Halimi also confirmed for KoSSev that a new indictment has been filed, but that it has not been delivered to him yet.
After the Court of Appeals decided to return the indictment back in September, Silvana Arsovic’s lawyer, Jovana Filipovic said that according to the reasoning of this court, the indictment is contradictory and inconsistent with the existing evidence, therefore, it is not possible to act on the indictment given the legal qualification of organized crime, capital murder, aiding and abetting the commission of the crime of capital murder.
„Given that one act excludes the other and that it is not possible to act on such an indictment, it needs to be edited, and we have pointed this out during the proceedings,“ Filipovic underlined at the time.
In today’s statement for KoSSev, Filipovic repeated what other KoSSev interlocutors and defense attorneys had underlined – that the indictment has not been changed.
„I spoke with the Prosecution, they will deliver the indictment in Serbian tomorrow, but according to my colleague Vasic, who read the indictment in Albanian, it has not been changed,“ she said.
After obtaining the indictment in the prosecutor’s office in Pristina, Vasic told RTS that the SPO in Pristina filed the same indictment again, with the same explanation, against the same persons, for the same crimes.
The leader of the GI SDP, Oliver Ivanovic was gunned down on January 16th by several shots to the back while entering his party premises in North Mitrovica. The Special Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo filed the first indictment almost two years later – on December 2nd.
So far, only one preparatory hearing was held on February 11th, after the first one scheduled for December 30th was postponed because the then prosecutor Syle Hoxha, who has since retired, submitted a new, amended indictment. This indictment was not translated into Serbian, prompting the defense to request for it to be translated into Serbian.
The second preparatory hearing of the suspects in the case of the murder of the leader of the GI SDP, which was supposed to take place on March 16th, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the trial led by the Kosovo Special Prosecutor’s Office before the Basic Court in Pristina, the defendants are Marko Rosic, Nedeljko Spasojevic, Silvana Arsovic, Zarko Jovanovic, Dragisa Markovic, and Rade Basara. Also, Milan Radoicic and Zvonko Veselinovic are accused of being the leaders of a criminal group.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
