An official of the OSCE mission in Kosovo and Metohija, Jelena Djukanovic, pleaded not guilty in a Pristina court to prosecution charges of alleged espionage, which, it is stated, endangered the constitutionality, citizens, and officials of the international mission.
Djukanovic was arrested on February 28 last year in Kosovska Mitrovica and has been in custody since then. In the Basic Court, prosecutor Bekim Kodraljiu and the defense attorney for the accused, lawyer Predrag Miljkovic, presented opening statements and evidence.
Following the defendant’s plea, the prosecutor stated that “collected evidence indicates that Djukanovic continuously worked for the interests of the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA), thereby endangering the constitutional order, the safety of citizens, and the OSCE mission.”
“The defendant continuously abused trust and access to confidential information, acting in the interest of the BIA. Her activity was not accidental, but well-coordinated. She had contacts with BIA officials, specifically with Aleksandar Vlajic, who was found guilty and sentenced as a BIA agent, and who confessed to the crime based on evidence and of his own free will. This verdict is a key piece of evidence in this criminal matter, as Vlajic received information from the defendant Djukanovic and forwarded it to the BIA office,” the prosecutor stated.
The judicial panel, led by Judge Rahman Beciri, refused to accept Vlajic’s verdict as evidence in this proceeding.
The request to reject the verdict was submitted by the defense attorney of the accused, assessing that the prosecution’s presented evidence showed there was “not even the first letter of espionage,” and that the case was based mainly on assumptions and free interpretations by the police.
During the trial, lawyer Miljkovic challenged the search of the suspect’s mobile phones, considering that a search of a mobile phone or any electronic device cannot be carried out without a court order.
“The prosecutor here found a mechanism by which they temporarily seize the phone, then by their own decision send it for digital forensics, i.e., analysis, effectively performing a search, but calling it a ‘device analysis.’ That is not the same,” Miljkovic points out.
He emphasizes that there should be a court order for actions carried out in such a way, because the most private things a person can have are at stake—their mobile phone and the digital content on the device.
“During today’s proceedings, there were no witnesses, which is surprising for such a large proceeding, so to speak, or a large indictment—espionage. There were no witnesses; we only presented material evidence, namely prosecution evidence. The prosecutor elaborated at the beginning, and we then presented our objections to that evidence. In the end, the court accepted our objections. At issue are the verdicts by which Vlajic was convicted for the criminal offense of espionage, as well as his statements after which he entered into a plea agreement. We pointed out that this verdict cannot be evidence against Jelena, nor can his statement be evidence against Jelena, given that he did not give the statement under oath, meaning he could have had and did have a motive to say anything, blame anyone, including himself, without bearing any responsibility in that sense. The court decided correctly when it separated the verdict and his statement from the case files,” Miljkovic stated.
In the further process of proving the allegations from the indictment, Miljkovic explains that it is now entirely questionable whether communication with any so-called BIA agent even exists, given that as evidence “there is no verdict by which he was convicted,” meaning that everything is based on speculation.
“The entire case was followed by a large, shall we say, interpretation by the police, police investigators, an interpretation of some correspondence and some communication. Too much speculation, interpretation, and construction for such a serious matter. The next hearing is on April 23, which will be the closing arguments in this proceeding, after which I believe Jelena will be acquitted of the charges against her,” Miljkovic underlined.
The prosecution in Pristina filed an indictment against Jelena Djukanovic on September 4 last year due to suspicion that, as a program officer at the OSCE center in the Kosovska Mitrovica region, she allegedly committed the criminal offense of espionage by obtaining and delivering sensitive documents to the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA).
MORE TOPICS:
Source: RTS, Photo: Printscreen Kosovo Online