“[Daniel} Lipšic’s statements about the {Baki} Sadiki case are not true,” Supreme Court Chairman Štefan Harabin said September 17, presenting a video from the Sme daily Internet TV.
“Lipšic said on Friday (September 13) for the Sme daily TV that the submission of appeal in the Sadiki case is not possible. Today, however, he says that the Supreme Court will decide the appeal in favour of Sadiki because Harabin is the chairman of the Supreme Court," said Harabin as quoted by the TASR newswire.
At the September 17 session of the parliamentary committee for defence and security, opposition MP Lipšic (independent, New Majority-Agreement) warned Justice Minister Tomáš Borec that the possible appeal of the Prešov Regional Court ruling in favour of reopening of the court process involving Sadiki will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court, headed by Harabin. According to Lipsic, “Harabin was Sadiki’s close friend in the past,” referring to an alleged transcript of Harabin’s telephone call with Baki Sadiki from 1994. Harabin reiterated that he has no relationship with Sadiki and accused Lipšic of concocting the whole story.
Whether or not the judges from Prešov who ruled in favour of reopening of the court process involving Baki Sadiki are disciplined is less important than the reversal of the verdict itself, said Justice Minister Tomáš Borec at September 17 session of the parliamentary committee for defence and security, adding that an appeal of the Prešov Regional Court decision is already being prepared. Sadiki, a Kosovar Albanian, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in absentia for drug-smuggling.
According to Borec, there is a fair chance of reversing the decision from the beginning of September which determined that Sadiki’s rights were violated when he was sentenced in absentia in that he was supposedly insufficiently informed of the legal process against him. “Unfortunately, the legislation no longer makes it possible for the minister and the general prosecutor to file a complaint [regarding the ruling] regarding a violation of the law,” he told TASR.
The committee nearly unanimously endorsed Borec’s report and planned course of action in the Sadiki case. Lipšic’s proposal asking the minister for information on further steps in relation to the submission of the appeal and on the disciplinary liability of judges who decided on the case did not pass.
A new trial in the case of Sadiki seems to be unavoidable. The Kosovo Justice Ministry confirmed for the daily Sme that it had conditioned the extradition of Sadiki to Slovakia last December with a new trial in his case. In Kosovo – the independence of which the Slovak government does not acknowledge – verdicts pronounced in absentia are allegedly not accepted at all.
An advisor to Kosovo’s Justice Minister, Dafina Bucaj, informed Sme that the Slovak request for extradition of Sadiki included a clause concerning his re-trial. This claim is in conflict with the assurance of Slovak Justice Minister Borec that he has never guaranteed the right to a new trial, and the related documents seem to confirm.
Sadiki had been on the run since 2010, and in 2011 a Slovak court sentenced him to 22 years in prison for drug trafficking. He was detained in Kosovo last October, with the 2011 verdict being challenged in May and plans for a new trial approved recently. Sadiki remains in custody for now, Sme wrote on September 18.
(Source: TASR, Sme)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
