After the Democratic Front (DF) announced that Sasa Sindjelic had been sentenced to prison for murder in Croatia in 2012, which, according to the political alliance, discredited him as cooperative witnesses in the attempted terrorism case, the Special State Prosecutor’s Office (SDT) has replied.
SDT says that DF representative should ask themselves, not the chief special prosecutor Milivoja Katnic, about Sindjelic’s credibility. DF leaders Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic are among the suspects for organising terrorist attempt.
SDT states that the chief special prosecutor earlier presented his position on the cooperative witness Sasa Sindjelic’s personality, when he said that he was a “person capable of executing certain tasks, a fanatic” who joined the criminal organisation out of his believes rather than to earn money and that his motive was to “help preventing Montenegro’s accession to NATO as a proven Pan-Slavic patriot”.
“Questioning Sasa Sindjelic’s credibility related to his cooperative witness status is aimed at creating a negative attitude towards the validity of the ongoing criminal proceedings. It also confirms that the organisers of the criminal group are making great efforts to prevent convicting its members,” SDT stated.
As it added, those who do not choose the means, methods or perpetrators to achieve their political goals should ask themselves rather than SDT about Sindjelic’s credibility.
As SDT stated, according to the evidence gathered so far, Sasa Sindjelic was the only one who contacted with Eduard Shishmakov, who is suspected of being one of the organisers of the criminal group.
“Therefore, the significance of his statement is undeniable in terms of Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), as the court determined when it issued a decision granting him cooperative witness status. The proven importance of the cooperative witness’s testimony is determined by the article 132 of CPC, according to which ‘the court shall not declare a person guilty solely on the basis of evidence obtained by a cooperative witness’s testimony. Therefore, the attempt to create impression that the criminal proceedings against the accused was based only on testimony of witnesses of disputable credibility is nothing but a swindle,” SDT stated.
