To the three arrested activists, who participated in the blockades and protest against excavation lithium, detention was ordered for Ivan Bjelic for 40 days, and Nikola Ristic and Jevđenij Dimitrijević for 30 days each, for the criminal offense of disturbing public order and peace.
The lawyer of the arrested persons, Marko Pantić, tells "Vreme" that together with his colleague Aleksandar Petrović, he defends the activists who were deprived of their freedom on Monday around six in the morning.
"They were charged with everything exclusively related to the event that took place around the reporter from 'Informer'." Therefore, it has nothing to do with the protest and the fact that they tied themselves to the rails on Prokop on their own initiative. We do not know whether another report will be filed against them. "At this moment, they are being charged and sentenced expressly because of Article eight, paragraph one, in connection with paragraph two, of the Law on Public Order and Peace," Pantić said.
Paragraph 2 foresees a stricter punishment, because if the violation is committed in a group of persons, a prison sentence is also possible. That's how it was decided. Pantić explains that the activists were convicted for improper, reckless and insolent behavior, as defined by law.
It is interesting that the prison sentence is prescribed because of the very broad description of the alleged crime. Specifically, in order for someone to be convicted of this, the criminal offense would have to be as specific and individualized as possible. That happened to Bjelic to some extent. The three of them are accused of surrounding the Informer journalist, obstructing her work and shouting, while Bjelic is accused of holding a sandwich in her mouth, waving it around and pushing the sandwich into her mouth.
"That is stated in the judgment," Pantić states.
What happened to the sandwich
He points out that by reviewing the video footage recorded during the protest, it can be seen that no such thing happened, i.e. that no one pushed a sandwich into the mouth of the "Informer" journalist.
In the verdict, only Bijelić's action was specified, and that, according to the lawyer, was that he held a sandwich near the injured party (an "Informer" journalist), pushed the sandwich into her mouth and smeared the contents. That's why the other two activists were sentenced to 10 days more, the lawyer says.
The alleged offense is not "concrete"
For Ristić and Dimitrijević, it is only stated that they surrounded the journalist, obstructed her work and shouted, but not what they shouted and in what exact way they disturbed the journalist. The lawyer asks how two people can surround someone and points out that the position of court practice is such that the crime charged must be specified.
The answer to the question of why only two people were detained, and not all who were present in the same place at the same time, is simple - the arrest of 20 people would have caused much more odium in the public.
Activists were convicted in an emergency procedure and sent to serve their sentence in the Padina scaffold, where they are waiting for their representatives to file an appeal and the court to decide on it.
Punishment before the verdict becomes final
"The court applied Article 308 of the Law on Misdemeanors, which provides for the execution of the sentence before the verdict becomes final. The application of this article of the law became popular in 2019 after protesters broke into the building of Radio and Television of Serbia, when those convicted by the application of that article were sent to prison," notes Pantić.
He adds that this derogates the right to appeal, because in regular procedures, an appeal prevents the execution of the judgment.
"We are of the opinion that the verdict is bad from a legal point of view and it should be dropped," said the lawyer of the convicted activists and added that an appeal has been filed against the verdict.
The court has 24 hours to submit the case files together with the appeal to the Misdemeanor Appeal Court, which then has 48 hours to rule on the appeal. verdict. That means that in the next 72 hours, the convicted activists could be free, if the second-instance court decides to annul the verdict of judge Goran Milutinović.
