In connection with the police custody of the former Minister of Justice, Mr. Vladan Batić, the Humanitarian Law Center points to the necessity of respecting fully the rights of the suspect and of providing a complete impartiality of the operation of the judicial organs during the pre-trial investigations

In connection with the police custody of the former Minister of Justice, Mr. Vladan Batić, the Humanitarian Law Center points to the necessity of respecting fully the rights of the suspect and of providing a complete impartiality of the operation of the judicial organs during the pre-trial investigations.

According to the allegations published in the media, Mr. Vladan Batić had been invited as a citizen to provide information to the organs of the Ministry of the Interior which he might be in possession of concerning the circumstances surrounding a certain criminal act or concerning the perpetrator of the act, but the Administration for Fighting Organized Crime (UBPOK), at the time of questioning him, decided that there existed a reasonable doubt that the former minister had committed a criminal act of abusing his position by instructing, by word of mouth, the then director of the Administration for Implementing Prison Sanctions, Mr. Dragan Vulić, to order the warden of the Central Prison  in Kruševac, Mr. Zvonko Paunović, to release from prison one Nenad Jovanović, aka Mali Didža, who has been connected with the criminal organization of Zoran Jotić, aka Jotka, and who, during the police Operation Saber, had been remanded in custody for 30 days. So, the former Minister of Justice, Mr. Vladan Batić, has been invited, as a citizen, to give information he might have had surrounding the circumstances of interest to UBPOK, and it is not clear whether Mr. Batić has become a suspect exclusively on the basis of the statement that he has given accompanied by a voluntary polygraph test. One should keep in mind the fact that the result of a polygraph test cannot be used in court as evidence so Mr. Batić under no circumstances could have been remanded in custody only on the basis of the fact that he “had not passed the polygraph test”. At the same time, as pointed out by the lawyers of Mr. Vladan Batić, the suspect had not been shown, nor had it been made possible for him to have an insight into the results of the polygraph test all of which creates doubts concerning the grounds for remanding him in custody by UBPOK.

Yesterday, for the same criminal act, the former director of the Administration for  Implementing Prison Sentences, Mr. Dragan Vulić, and the warden of the Central Prison in Kruševac, Mr. Zvonko Paunović, were arrested. According to the information provided by the media, Paunović has repeated his accusations against Batić and Vulić in connection with the release from prison of Nenad Jovanović, but the contents of Dragan Vulić’s statement given to the organs of the Ministry of the Interior is unknown.

In order to dispel the serious misgivings of the public that the government of Mr. Vojislav Koštunica has been carrying out retribution against the members of the Cabinet of Mr. Zoran Đinđić and Mr. Zoran Živković for the arrests of several collaborators of the incumbent government in the police Operation Saber and to prevent pressure upon the judiciary in this and other announced cases it is important for the law enforcement organs and the investigating judge to carry out, as soon as possible, the necessary activities in order to determine the basis for the arrest of Mr. Vladan Batić.