The Prešov District Court has cancelled the 2011 conviction of Baki Sadiki for serious drugs offences. He was sentenced in absentia two years ago to 22 years in prison by both the district and regional courts in Prešov. The decision cancelling his conviction is not yet effective as the prosecutor has filed a complaint, the TASR newswire wrote.
Prosecutor Peter Šufliarsky told the media that his office had contested the decision of the district court and will now wait for the ruling of the Prešov Regional Court. Sadiki was missing until last December, when he was detained in Kosovo and extradited to Slovakia where he started serving his sentence. After being transported to Slovakia, Sadiki claimed that he was unaware of his conviction and requested that it be re-examined. It was this request that the court granted by cancelling the original verdicts.
Sadiki told the court on May 30 that since January 2010 he had been living in Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo and did not know about the prosecution against him, nor about his sentencing and insisted he learned this only after he was detained in Kosovo. Prosecutors argued that he had to know about the prosecution and trial, citing the testimony of a witness. Sadiki will now be held in pre-trial custody.
Sadiki was convicted in 2011 of importing and distributing heroin from Turkey between 2007 and 2008.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
