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".
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.
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, Croatia and Montenegro.
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.
Pašić presented both the singed contract and the annex to that contract between the company "Shanghai ChangQi Medical technology center", "BTL" and "Srebrena malina" for the purchase of 100 ventilators, as well as the communication between Kristijan Marić from the company "Exotrade" from Rijeka where was this contract.
The message that Marić sent to Hodžić was also shown: "Can at least Fadil sign this letter and make us an invoice?"
Hodžić answers: "I'm waiting for Fadil to come to the office and sign it, he will be here soon."
Pašić said that in proving the claim that Hodžić could not sign the annex to the contract before Novalić and Solak knew about it, and he also showed the correspondence between Hodžić and Kristijan Marić regarding the contract and the need for Novalić to sign a letter of intent dated April 14th. A letter of intent regarding the purchase of the ACM812A ventilators was also presented, stating, among other things, that the purchase had the full support of the B&H Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations and the FB&H Government.
Pašić also presented the pro-forma invoices, stating that he would prove with the expert's findings that it was a fake pro-forma invoice, and at the end of today's hearing he showed examples of contracts for the purchase of ACM812A ventilators to prove that the price for ACM812A ventilators was multiplied.
He also presented the contract between "BTL" and "Exotrade" from March 28th on the purchase of 200 ventilators for 3.9 million euros, "BTL" and Belgrade's Sinofarm on the purchase of 200 ventilators for five million euros, and a contract from March 30th, between "BTL" and "Exotrade" on the purchase of 100 ventilators for 2.2 million euros, as well as a contract between "Exotrade" and a Chinese company for 200 ventilators at a price of 2.38 million dollars.
