9/11/2016 TUFIK SOFTIĆ CASE: STATE PROSECUTOR DENIGRATES THE PROBLEM OF UN-INVESTIGATED ATTACK ON JOURNALIST BY PLEA AGREEMENT
By concluding a plea agreement with Draško Vuković, who admitted to had falsely testified about attackers on journalist Tufik Softić and agreed to pay the fine of € 1700, the State Prosecutor’s Office denigrates the problem of un-investigated attempted murder of journalist Softić.
Softić was suspecting already in 2007, when the attack on him occurred, that Vuković, a member of Darko Šarić’s clan, participated in the organisation of the attack on him and had notified the police about his suspicion. However, Vuković was interviewed by the investigating authorities only seven years after the attack and on his own initiative, when he came in to falsely report three persons for the attack. The state then conducted a year and a half-long unsuccessful investigation against the three men he reported.
The State Prosecutor’s Office now assessed that such an act deserved only a fine of € 1700 and nothing else.
In the letter HRA director Tea Gorjanc Prelević and Tufik Softić’s attorney Dalibor Tomović addressed to the Supreme State Prosecutor Ivica Stanković on 18 January 2016 asking him to initiate procedures to establish responsibility of police officers and those with the State Prosecutor’s Office responsible for obvious failures to conduct an effective investigation in the case, the question was also raised whether the State Prosecutor would charge Vuković for perjury due to his false testimony in the investigation on the basis of which three persons were investigated for almost two years (the letter is available here).
Ten months later, the Supreme State Prosecutor has neither ensured further investigation nor initiated any action against those responsible for ineffective investigation, but only concluded a plea agreement with Vuković for perjury, who obstructed the investigation for a year and a half.
Finally, a question remains of why Vuković had given false testimony? Whose interests was he protecting and why is there no indication that the State Prosecutor’s Office is at all interested to find out the answer?
