Defense witness of Fikret Hodzic stated at the trial for abuses during the procurement of respirators that their prices increased drastically from the end of March to the beginning of April 2020.
Goran Petrovic, a lawyer from Montenegro, said that he was engaged as a legal advisor to the company “BTL Medical” from Podgorica, which deals with the procurement of medical equipment, and which Hodzic‘s “Srebrena Malina” will later contact in connection with the procurement of respirators.
“There was an explosion of prices, prices were rising weekly… in March, they are growing dizzyingly day by day,” Petrovictold.
He noted that the offers for ACM 812A respirators at the end of March were at a price of 19.000 and 20.000 euros, and that at the beginning of April they amounted to 42.000, 43.000 and even 49.000.
Petrovic said that “Exotrade” from Rijeka and Kristian Maric, who previously testified at the invitation of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), were also involved in these purchases.
The witness said that on March 28th, “BTL” concluded a contract for the purchase of 200 ACM respirators for Serbia and that “Exotrade” guaranteed delivery within three days, but that this deadline was not met and that “Sinopharm” terminated the contract with “BTL”, demanding to return the five million euros they had paid. Those respirators, as he stated, are now in storage in Bar.
In the cross-examination, the prosecutors claimed that the witness was talking about the prices of respirators that he had no knowledge of in March and April 2020. Petrovic claimed the opposite, stating that during that period he participated in drawing up the contract and that he had knowledge of the offers for respirators.
Prosecutor Senad Osmic said that the Court in Podgorica concluded that “BTL” misled “Sinopharm”, which the witness did not agree with, stating that those judges are in custody. He said that those proceedings in Montenegro have not been completed.
When asked by prosecutor Mirza Hukeljic if he was aware that “Exotrade” had purchased respirators at a price of 11.900 dollars per piece, Petrovic said that he only found out after a year and a half, and that Borna Cicero from that company told him that they had reserved respirators two or three months earlier.
In response to additional questions from defense counsel Mirna Avdibegovic, the witness repeated that the 200 respirators procured for Serbia, as well as the 100 agreed upon later, were not the ones procured by “Srebrena malina”, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
