Avdibegović: Hodžić's right to a fair trial violated, appeal to the Constitutional Court of BiH to follow

(Patria) - Finally convicted Fikret Hodžić recently stated as a guest on Face TV that he was convicted for a crime for which he was not tried. It concerns the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority, and his lawyer Mirna Avdibegović claims that it is a gross violation of the right to a fair trial.

“As soon as I heard the pronouncement of the first-instance verdict, I said that he was convicted for something that was not charged against him. I have reasons to claim that, and we argued that in the appeal. The reason is as follows, to avoid falling into a trap, there is a possibility of reclassification of a criminal offense in criminal law. However, reclassification was not carried out in this proceeding. When you look at the first-instance verdict, reclassification is not mentioned in a single word, it is not explained, nor could it have been, because the factual description of the criminal offense that would contain elements of the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority was never charged against him. Not only was it not charged against him, the prosecutor never said that he was charging him with the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority. Then we arrive at a situation where he is convicted in the first instance precisely for that offense, convicted for a criminal offense that was never charged against him, either factually or legally, and from which he could never defend himself,” said Avdibegović.

This, she emphasizes, is the worst violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6, the right to a fair trial.

“Everyone must know what they are being charged with, in order to be able to defend themselves against it. In this case, that reclassification was not done. What else was additionally done? To bridge that gap in the fact that the elements of the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority are missing, the Court states that he acted as a responsible person under the Criminal Code of the Republika Srpska, but convicts him under the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH, combining two criminal codes, which is absolutely impermissible in criminal law. The defense pointed this out all the time,” said Avdibegović.

She further states that she will use all possibilities for the protection of rights, and will very soon, as soon as they receive the verdict, file an appeal to the Constitutional Court of BiH.

“After that, we have the possibility of the European Court of Human Rights. We will definitely use all legal remedies. Do not forget that we also have extraordinary legal remedies at our disposal. We will see what the future shows. But it is not the individual that matters, it is the entire society, what we are exposing ourselves to, what rule of law we are talking about. Years of a person's life are taken away, and then what? What kind of right or meager compensation for damages can he obtain? Nothing can turn back the years. That is the essence,” said Fikret Hodžić's lawyer.

Let us recall, by the first-instance verdict of the Court of BiH, the accused Fadil Novalić, Fahrudin Solak, Fikret Hodžić and the legal entity “F.H. Srebrena malina” d.o.o. Srebrenica, were found guilty, i.e., the legal entity responsible, for committing the criminal offense of abuse of position or authority under Article 383, paragraph 3, in conjunction with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH, in conjunction with Articles 55 and 31 of the same Law, and the accused Fahrudin Solak also for the criminal offense of forgery of an official document under Article 389, paragraph 2, in conjunction with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Federation of BiH. Based on the above, the first-instance court imposed the following prison sentences on the accused:

– accused Fadil Novalić, a prison sentence of 4 years;
– accused Fahrudin Solak, a combined prison sentence of 6 years;
– accused Fikret Hodžić, a prison sentence of 5 years;
– accused legal entity “F.H. Srebrena malina”, a fine in the amount of 200,000.00 KM, N1 reports.