VENTILATORS AFFAIR

Novalić's message to Hodžić: "How is this going, knight"

A special controversy in the courtroom between the prosecutor and the defense was caused by a photo of the communication between Hodžić and Novalić, which was found in the mobile phone of the owner of company „Srebrena malina“

Arrival at the Court of B&H: Fadil Novalić and Fikret Hodžić. Avaz

A. Aljimi

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, FB&H Finance Minister Jelka Milićević, suspended director of the Federal Civil Protection Administration Fahrudin Solak and Fikret Hodžć, owner of the „Srebrena malina“ company, are also charged.

Prosecutor Džermin Pašić continued with the procedure, and during the hearing, a number of material pieces of evidence were presented, including contracts for the purchase of the disputed ventilators, proforma invoices and invoices, and mutual incriminating communication between the accused.

A special controversy in the courtroom between the prosecutor and the defense was caused by a photo of the communication between Hodžić and Novalić, which was found in the mobile phone of the owner of company „Srebrena malina“.

This is a communication from April 14th and 15th last year, which reads:

"Prime Minister, Solak should just give me an annex to the contract because of this situation regarding the change of producers and because of the delay that is not up to us but the WHO rules from minute to minute so that we do not have a problem later. Let’s be completely clean, and I believe there are already those who don’t want this to be ok".


Deleted content from cell phones

The next day, Novalić sent a message to Hodžić: " How is this going, knight?", and Hodžić replied: "Okay, don't worry. I promised and we almost did it, with God's willing."

Prosecutor Pašić stated that the message was found in the form of a photograph because the accused deleted the contents from their mobile phones in order to cover up the criminal acts.

The defense spoke about the legality and authenticity of this evidence.

Pašić emphasized Novalić's responsibility as the leader of a criminal group because Hodžić asked him to annex an agreement before embarking on further procurement of medical devices.

He also presented further communication between the intermediaries for the procurement of ventilators from Rijeka and Montenegro.


A series of documents

A number of documents were also presented by which the Prosecutor wants to prove that the ventilators were procured at a far higher price than the real one.

Namely, Novalić and the others bought ventilators at a price of 39,000 euros per piece, and the same intermediaries initially paid a price of 19,500 euros for the same devices, and one invoice amounted to 11,000 dollars. It was therefore based on Pašić's evidence of the amount of 200 ventilators that were paid twice less than the 100 that Hodžić procured.

Also devastating is the fact that donated ventilators by the United Arab Emirates were paid $ 6,000 per piece.

It is a donation that arrived in B&H in early June.