Exactly 1,000 days since Oliver Ivanovic's murder: Outcome of court proceeding still not in sight

Photo: Armend NIMANI / AFP / Profimedia

Although exactly 1,000 days have passed since the murder of Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the Civic Initiative "Serbia, Democracy, Justice," the outcome of the court proceedings before the Special Court in Pristina is not yet in sight.

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After several hearings and objections filed against the content of the indictment by the defendants' lawyers, the Appellate Court recently returned the case to the First Instance Court for retrial and lawyer Dejan Vasic says that such a move has not been recorded in court practice so far.

Vasic, who is defending Kosovo policeman Dragisa Markovic in the case of Oliver Ivanovic's murder, told the Kosovo Online portal that the Appellate Court's argument is interesting, because it is pointed out that the special prosecutor did not sufficiently explain and prove a well-founded suspicion of the crimes the defendants are accused of.

"The essence of the opinion of the Appellate Court is that the existence of an organized criminal group has not been established to a sufficientl degree. Specifically for my client, involvement after the crime was committed, there is no well-founded suspicion to implement that, and if there is no well-founded suspicion, then the indictment cannot exist either," said Vasic.

In his opinion, none of the people listed in the indictment committed the murder of Oliver Ivanovic.

"Nothing was done in the investigation to determine who killed him, and even less so to find out who could have ordered something like that to be done," said Vasic and added that he did not know what the further course of the investigation would be.

"I think that the Basic Court should return the indictment to the Special Prosecutor's Office to be supplemented, and if it does not exist, the question of detention and everything that has happened so far is raised. I am focusing on the defense of my client and I expect that the indictment will be thrown out and that this procedure will be completed at last, but we will see what the court's decision will be," said Vasic.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)