Veljko M. Delibašić, PhD MY TITLE OF AN ATTORNEY DENIES ME THE RIGHT TO FEAR MY CLOSING ARGUMENTS 1 Veljko M. Delibašić, PhD MY TITLE OF AN ATTORNEY DENIES ME THE RIGHT TO FEAR MY CLOSING ARGUMENTS Publisher UNIVERZITET PRIVREDNA AKADEMIJA PRAVNI FAKULTET ZA PRIVREDU I PRAVOSUĐE NOVI SAD Reviewers Prof. Željko Bjelajac, PhD, Full Professor at the Law School of Economics and Judiciary in Novi Sad, former attorney Slobodan Stojanović, PhD, attorney from Belgrade Toma Fila, attorney from Belgrade, member of the Council of the Serbian Bar Association and the former Chair of the Serbian Bar Association Milovan Komnenić, PhD, attorney from Belgrade Translated from Serbian by Vesna Anđelić Nikolendžić Language Editor Nada Đorđević 2019. 2 To my daughter Katarina 3 I would like to be an attorney. It is the most beautiful vocation in the world. François Marie Arouet Voltaire The grandeur of the defence attorney’s vocation is reflected in the fact that we stand by our clients even when we have to accept the odium of the public and personally experience what it means to be alone in one’s struggle, exposed to intensity of rage and bitterness of the environment in which one lives. Veljko Guberina Give a man all spiritual qualities, give him all qualities of character, assume that he has seen everything, learned and remembered everything, that he has worked for thirty years without resting, that he has properties of a writer, critic, moralist, and that he possesses experience of an old man and energy of a youth, unmistakable memory of a child, and perhaps with all that you will get a perfect attorney. Paillet 4 CONTENTS FOREWORD BY PROFESSOR MILAN ŠKULIĆ, LLD ..................................................................... 6 FOREWORD BY ATTORNEY DRAGOLJUB ĐORĐEVIĆ ............................................................. 10 DUŠAN KRSMANOVIĆ – ASSASSINATION OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA ZORAN ĐINĐIĆ ............................................................................................................ 13 DUŠAN KRSMANOVIĆ – APPEAL AGAINST THE VERDICT IN THE CASE OF ASSASSINATION OF ZORAN ĐINĐIĆ ........................................................................................... 26 ANTON STANAJ ................................................................................................................................. 39 DOBOROSAV GAVRIĆ – MURDER OF ŽELJKO RAŽNATOVIĆ ARKAN................................. 59 MILORAD BRACANOVIĆ - ASSASSINATION OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF SERBIA IVAN STAMBOLIĆ ............................................................................................................................ 80 MILORAD BRACANOVIĆ – UNAUTHORISED POSSESSION OF A RIFLE ............................... 91 PREDRAG ERGIĆ – THE MURDER OF ALEKSANDAR JEVREMOVIĆ ..................................... 96 ANDRIJA DRAŠKOVIĆ – THE MURDER OF ZVONKO PLEČIĆ ............................................... 117 BRANKO TOMAŠEVIĆ MANE – SERIOUS ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT ............................... 137 NENAD STANKOVIĆ – ‘MOTORWAY MOB’ .............................................................................. 143 JELENA NIKOLIĆ – CIRCULATION OF NARCOTICS ................................................................ 155 DRAGAN PROTIĆ – ATTACK AGAINST POLICE ....................................................................... 168 ZORAN ĆOPIĆ – SALE OF IKL PROPERTY ................................................................................. 176 LJUTOMIR POPOVIĆ – AGGRAVATED MURDER IN ĆUPRIJA ............................................... 189 PREDRAG HAJDER – TRAFFICKING IN NARCOTIC DRUGS AND AGGRAVATED LARCENY .......................................................................................................................................... 199 NOVICA ELEK – “THE ROBBERY OF THE CENTURY” ............................................................ 205 ALEKSANDAR GOLUBOVIĆAND DEJAN TUKIĆ – ABDUCTION OF ZORAN KNEŽEVIĆ KNEZ .................................................................................................................................................. 214 BRANISLAV BIJELIĆ – THE MURDER OF BANJO DOMAZETOVIĆ ...................................... 225 BRANISLAV BIJELIĆ – FIRST REQUEST FOR THE PROTECTION OF LEGALITY (24 JULY 2014) ................................................................................................................................................... 245 BRANISLAV BIJELIĆ - SECOND REQUEST FOR THE PROTECTION OF LEGALITY (22 JUNE 2015) ................................................................................................................................................... 252 EXCERPT FROM THE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 256 ABOUT THE AUTHOR .................................................................................................................... 259 5 FOREWORD BY PROFESSOR MILAN ŠKULIĆ, PhD It is common for a reader who comes across a book for the first time to get his first impression on the basis of its title. Skimming through the bookshelves or looking at the window of a bookshop, a would-be-reader decides whether a certain title arouses sufficient interest in him. Then he decides whether to undertake it upon himself to read the book, or perhaps just leaf through it, maybe read it superficially, or perhaps read it ‘in one go’… The title of the new book by Veljko Delibašić, PhD, on the one hand, speaks for itself, and on the other, it is likely to intrigue and attract many prospective readers. Giving this title to his book, Doctor Delibašić ‘states’ loud and clear what the main motto of his career as an attorney is, i.e. of being a professional defence counsel in criminal proceedings, because he has chosen to deal exclusively or predominantly with criminal law issues as his profession. Hence when the author says loudly in the very title of his book “My title of an attorney denies me the right to fear”, he immediately sends a few messages to his readers, among which two appear to be of utmost importance. The first message is that the author views his profession of an attorney as a ‘title’ of sorts – by practicing law as an attorney, one attains the right to a prestigious ‘title’ and yet all the rights are accompanied by certain obligations, the most prominent among which can – either explicitly or implicitly – be gathered from the contents of the book, that is, from the selected closing arguments presented by Delibašić, PhD, in a number of significant criminal cases. In other words – every title has to be earned. The author’s second message concerns the latter half of the title of the monograph, and implies that, on the one hand, there is a kind of ‘right to fear’, generically immanent to humans, but that, on the other hand, an attorney does not have this right, and that it is practicing the profession of an attorney that denies one this right. Indeed, the author does not actually deny the fact that any attorney, be it a defence counsel in a high-profile criminal case, certainly may and must fear many things. It is an innate human feature, yet the defence counsel in a criminal case, regardless of the gravity of the criminal offence one might be facing, severity of the case, threats, actual and possible threats, must never be afraid. The defence counsel has no right to fear, or – more precisely – to that kind of fear, because it is the only way to successfully defend the accused in the criminal proceedings. The book comprises a selection of closing arguments presented by Attorney Delibašić in a series of exceptionally significant trials. Veljko Delibašić, PhD, was a member of the 6 working group within the Republic of Serbia Ministry of Justice responsible for drafting the Law on Amendments and Additions to the Serbian Criminal Procedure Code in 2011. This relatively new CPC is specific because - in addition to radically changing our normative criminal procedure setting by assigning investigative duties to the jurisdiction of public prosecutors, as well as imposing substantial limitation of the principle of truth - it organises the main hearing in a completely adversary manner, taking the form of a ‘battle of proofs’ between the parties, and contains a number of other specific legal and technical omissions, and sometimes even serious mistakes. Attorney Delibašić spotted a large number of such mistakes and omissions in the new CPC, thereby giving a significant contribution to the activities of the said working group, but also to our professional and scientific public generally. Dr Delibašić, consistently insisted – in a particularly convincing way and using very sound arguments – on criticizing a very specific rule in the new code, according to which the duration of the closing argument was to be limited in time and form. Attorney Delibašić reasonably pointed out that such provisions were superfluous because the closing argument must not contain repetition of testimonies nor address issues irrelevant for the case, and where there are several defence counsels they have to divide the topics on which to elaborate among themselves. Doctor Delibašić argued that in practice this would virtually boil down to violating the right to defence, and that it would be a shame to ‘save the time’ at this final stage of the proceedings which may sometimes last for years, and in this way only a few hours or even much less would be spared. These are great arguments indeed against an