The start of the trial for the accused Serbs on terrorism charges has been postponed; the court documents have been provided to them only in Albanian

The trial of four Serbs suspected of terrorism—Milun Milenkovic Lune, Dejan Pantic, Aleksandar Vlajic, and Miomir Vakic—has been postponed until January 30th because the case files have not been translated into Serbian. The judge has given the prosecution a five-day deadline to provide the defense with complete case files.

Aleksandar Vlajic's lawyer, Milos Delevic, stated that they had received the indictment in Serbian today and had encountered the evidence files proposed by the prosecution for the first time.

"We haven't had time to compare the submitted evidence with the case files we received. Considering that my client is accused of a serious criminal offense, I am requesting additional time to prepare for the defense. I am seeking a short postponement of the preparatory hearing to compare the submitted evidence with the case files we received and determine if the files are complete and translated into Serbian. We will provide a written response shortly", Delevic said.

Dejan Pantic's lawyer, Ljubomir Pantovic, agreed with Delevic and added that Article 240 obliged the prosecution to make every effort to deliver the indictment to the accused and the defense before the preparatory hearing.

He stated that the Special Prosecution had created a situation that had not allowed the preparatory hearing to take place today.

"It has been a month since the indictment was filed, and the defense has not received complete case files translated into Serbian. The accused couldn't enter a plea on the indictment today, whether they primarily understood it; simply put, the conditions were not met for the session to be held. We had to insist on this even though one of the accused is in detention, but there were truly no basic conditions for the hearing to take place", Pantovic said.

According to him, in the indictment the defense received today, the four suspects are charged with the crime of "committing a terrorist act".

"The prosecution claims that all four accused, as co-perpetrators, committed the criminal offense of 'committing a terrorist act'. I would say that there is no evidence in that direction; what I have read are things that, in my opinion, do not constitute relevant evidence", Pantovic concluded.

"Therefore, I believe there are no conditions to hold the preparatory hearing today. The main problem is the case files. I haven't received all the case files. The majority of the files have not been translated into Serbian, so we are unable to submit adequate requests for the dismissal of the indictment and objections to the evidence", Vlajic said.

Miomir Vakic's lawyer, Dejan A. Vasic, emphasizes that the prosecution treats the Serbs selectively.

"The selectivity that the prosecution applies towards the Serbs is becoming terrifying, and today is the peak of that", Vasic said.

Also, Milun Milenkovic's lawyer, Predrag Miljkovic, pointed out that he had received some case files in Albanian and had requested that the prosecution translate all evidence into Serbian as soon as possible.

Miljkovic requested that the detention measure for Milun Milenkovic be replaced with house arrest, and the judge stated that the judicial panel would decide on that measure.