The trial of Bakir's Prime Minister Fadil Novalić and others in the "Ventilators" affair continued today in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to Novalić, the FB&H Minister of Finance Jelka Milićević, the suspended director of the Federal Civil Protection Administration (FCPA) Fahrudin Solak and Fikret Hodžić, the owner of the company "Srebrena malina", are also accused.

Prosecutors Džermin Pašić and Mirza Hukeljić continued with the evidentiary proceedings, and during the hearing they presented a number of material pieces of evidence, including contracts for the purchase of the disputed ventilators and incriminating mutual communication between the accused.

Hukeljić presented a document from the FCPA with which he wants to prove that there was no expert body in this institution that would evaluate the quality of medical equipment that was ordered. Evidence included bank statements confirming money transactions for the purchase of ventilators.An invoice for 10.5 million KM from July 14 last year was presented to the court, stating that the payment was made in advance.

The Agency for medical products and medical devices and their inspectors also found that the ventilators were stored in a tent and kept on pallets without temperature control and other parameters, and found that the FCPA driver had taken the ventilators from the airport without any supporting documentation.. Inspectors also determined that the FCPA tent "does not have the status of a customs warehouse". According to the inspector's report, no lighting or equipment for storing sensitive medical equipment was provided in that tent.

The prosecutor also showed SMS communication between Hasan Ganibegović, former Secretary of the FB&H Government, and a certain Edvin Kučuković, who is one of the intermediaries for the procurement of medical equipment.

It was written in the message: "Please forward this to the Prime Minister. I want my conscience to be clear in these difficult times. Beware of the respirators you have procured. Patients die on these respirators because they have a lung rupture. I can procure a thousand pieces of these ventilators for the price of $9,000 - Kučuković wrote.

Ganibegović forwarded this SMS to Novalić on Viber.

The court received communication via messages from Fikret Hodžić and Dušan Nešić and Kristijan Marić, with whom he was negotiating the purchase of ventilators. These are intermediaries for the procurement of medical equipment from Montenegro and Croatia. A conversation via WhatsApp between Kristijan Marić and Sanja Lekić was also shown, in which it was written that Hodžić would "get another 300 after buying 100 ventilators".

The defense objected to the presentation of this communication, because in their view it was illegal evidence because the messages were not separated in a lawful manner and were "only pasted on a word document".

Also, prosecutor Hukeljić stated that at the time of signing the contract for the purchase of ventilators, neither "Srebrena malina" nor FCPA were entered in the register of wholesalers of medical equipment, so they could not legally procure these devices.

At the last hearing held on May 19, prosecutor Mirza Hukeljić submitted material evidence, including the contract dated April 3, 2020 on the purchase of 100 ventilators between "Srebrena Malina" and the Federal Civil Protection Administration in the amount of 10.5 million KM. These are HCVE 003 ventilators that have never been purchased.

The trial is due to continue on June 16.