In the appeal, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina requested a stricter sentence for the former Minister of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina Selmo Cikotić, who was sentenced to three years in prison for abuse of position or authority.
On the other hand, the defense proposed that the verdict be changed or canceled and the proceedings be returned for a new trial.
At the beginning, the accused Cikotić stated that his defense attorneys decided not to attend the hearing due to the current lawyers’ strike, after which the chairman of the Appellate Council, Redžib Begić, said that the Court had received the request of the defense to postpone the hearing.
He recalled the notification of the Bar Association of the Federation and the decision to organize a protest with suspension of work and representation of lawyers in defense cases ex officio before the State Court, and added that the accused had selected defense counsel and that they were obliged to attend.
As stated by Cikotić, the interpretation of his defense attorneys is that the provision of the strike also applies to them, after which Judge Begić reminded of the provision of the Law on Criminal Procedure according to which there is no obstacle to holding a session of the Council if the defense attorneys are properly informed, and added that the conditions for holding a search.
Judge Begić said that the Prosecution filed an appeal against the decision on criminal sanctions with a proposal to change the first-instance verdict and impose a harsher sentence on the accused.
According to judge Begić, the defense attorney Kadrija Kolić filed an appeal due to significant violations of the provisions of the criminal procedure, violation of the Criminal Code and due to wrongly or incompletely established factual situation, as well as the decision on criminal sanction with a proposal that the Court change the verdict or cancel it and return the case for retrial.
In their answers, the Prosecution and the Defense requested that the opposite party’s appeal be rejected.
At the beginning of December last year, Cikotić was sentenced to three years in prison for abusing his position or authority as the former Minister of Defense.
He was found guilty of favoring the company “Scout” from Zagreb, to the detriment of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the planned disposal of surplus weapons. He was found guilty on all six counts of the indictment, in which the individual amounts of benefits received by “Scout” were listed, ranging from several tens of thousands to more than two million US dollars.
Prosecutor Mladen Furtula said that in its appeal, the Prosecution explained in great detail why the prison sentence was not adequate and why the accused should be sentenced to a higher sentence. According to him, during the first-instance proceedings, the defense did not reduce the probative strength of the Prosecution.
Cikotić assessed that the prosecutor did not prove that there was an agreement between him and his assistant Trpimir Repac, as well as that the Prosecution ignored the Law on Defense and the Rulebook on the Internal Organization of the Ministry of Defense. As he said, the Prosecution did not prove that there was an agreement, as well as an intention to commit a criminal act.
He added that he had never seen the representatives of Scout, that the Prosecution did not prove the basis of the accusation, and that he expects the Council to issue a correct verdict.
After Appellate Council member Hilmo Vučinić asked him if he had proof that expert witness Berko Zečević was an employee of “Scout”, Cikotić said that defense witness Muriz Čelik stated that expert witness Zečević was sending e-mails from his address on behalf of Scout.
The decision on the appeals of the Prosecution and the Defense will be made later, reports BIRN BiH.
