N15.T3 – Prosecutors seek 20 years in prison for Vesna Medenica and her son Miloš, defence seeks acquittal
HRA NEWSLETTER 15 – TOPIC 3
High Court judge Vesna Kovačević scheduled the pronouncement of the judgment for 28 January in the proceedings against former President of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica and other defendants, in a case in which her son Miloš Medenica is identified as the head of a criminal organisation. The Special State Prosecutor’s Office is seeking long-term prison sentences and fines for Vesna and Miloš Medenica, while the defence is seeking acquittal.
During several hours of closing arguments on 11 December, special prosecutors Jovan Vukotić and Vukas Radonjić emphasised that Vesna Medenica was not an ordinary member of a criminal organisation, but rather its institutional shield, and that the organisation exerted influence over the judiciary.
The prosecutors requested that the court sentence the former head of the Supreme Court and her son Miloš to 20 years in prison each, and also impose fines of 100,000 euros on each of them.
They stated that Medenica’s interest in court cases was a consistent pattern of her conduct. According to the prosecutors, she had unquestionable power, which they supported by referring to evidence in the form of communications between the defendants. However, although in November the Special State Prosecutor’s Office requested that additional communications via the Sky application be admitted as evidence, the trial panel rejected that proposal.
One day later, on 12 December, defence lawyers and the defendants presented their closing arguments before the High Court. All defence counsels requested acquittals for their clients, except for the lawyer representing defendants Marko and Bojan Popović, who proposed suspended sentences for them.
In her closing statement, Vesna Medenica said that there was no evidence that she belonged to any criminal group and that she would not admit to something she had not done.
“For none of these groups is my conduct described. And we know that this is an essential element of a criminal offence. The only thing taken as my ‘conduct’ is motherhood,” she said.
She also stated that she appeared to be “an expensive exhibit meant to serve today’s socio-political reality.”
Her defence lawyers, Zdravko Begović and Zdenko Tomanović, argued that the case files contain no evidence that the former President of the Supreme Court had contact with members of a criminal organisation, but that there was a political need for her to be convicted.
Counsel for Miloš Medenica, Stefan Jovanović, stated that Sky communications, in the absence of material evidence, cannot serve as a basis for a conviction.
It should be recalled that Miloš Medenica, the son of the former President of the Supreme Court, is charged with having formed a criminal organisation in 2019, whose members allegedly included his mother and other defendants, with the aim of cigarette smuggling and unlawful influence over the judiciary, for the purpose of acquiring unlawful gain and power. The Special State Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against him and Vesna Medenica, Darko Lalović, Vasilije Petrović, Bojan and Marko Popović, Marko Vučinić, Milorad Medenica, Luka Bakoč, Petar Milutinović, Ivana Kovačević, Radomir Raičević, Marjan Bevenja, Stevo Karanikić and Goran Jovanović, as well as the company Kopad Company, for the criminal offences of forming a criminal organisation, smuggling, giving and receiving bribes, unlawful influence and incitement to unlawful influence, abuse of office, drug trafficking, unlawful possession of weapons, infliction of grievous bodily harm, and obstruction of justice.
English