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All the defendants denied their guilt at the beginning of the judicial process before the Special Department of the Belgrade High Court against the owner of the Jovanjic company, Predrag Koluvija and nine other people.
Belgrade High Court Photo: R. Markovic“I did not do anything that the prosecution stated, nor did any of the defendants do what is written in the indictment. I am sure we will prove that in the subsequent course of the proceedings,” Koluvija said, speaking about the indictment.
The other defendants repeated the same, except Sergej Mrdja, who is being tried in absentia.
Previously, the Deputy Prosecutor for Organized Crime Sasa Drecun, upon reading the accusation, pointed out that the defendants are charged with the crime of illicit production and distribution of the narcotic cannabis as an organized criminal group.
Drecun specified that the criminal group was organized by Koluvija, while the other members carried out his orders. The orders were transmitted by the defendant Mrdja, while Vladan Živojinović directly supervised the cannabis production process with a massive part of the psychoactive substance THC. The other defendants worked in the cultivation of cannabis, irrigating and caring for the plants, cutting, drying and packing.
During the search of three facilities, including the Jovanjica plantation, the police found a total of 1,673,310 kilograms of cannabis.
Koluvija was detained on November 13, 2019, after the car he was in overtook the car in which Inspector Milenković was driving at high speed. On that occasion, he presented a police identification whose authenticity is in doubt.
In previous years, Jovanjic’s estate was visited by numerous officials from the ruling coalition, and Koluvija himself was a member of the business delegation headed by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to Russia. There was speculation in the public that Koluvija called the president’s brother’s phone number after his arrest, but Inspector Milenković later publicly denied it.
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