STA, 13 April 2018 - Six members of an alleged criminal syndicate that acted as wholesaler for the European drug market have been released from detention after the Celje District Court failed to carry out arraignments for a year and a half after their arrests, the newspaper Slovenske Novice reported on Friday.
The Celje Supreme Court issued the release of Nedžad Lužić, Žarko Kalinić, Branimir Stokuća, Peter Šolaja, Branko Peklaj and Milan Nikić earlier this week after it had already intervened and called on the District Court twice to set arraignment dates.
When the six men were arrested in an international bust in November 2016, the then Police Commissioner Branko Japelj said that the Europe-wide syndicate of which they were reportedly members acted as drug wholesaler for the entire continent.
They were suspected to be a part of a group that organised transport of drugs for other drug rings, starting in September 2014.
The drugs were allegedly transported by Slovenian lorry drivers hidden among other cargo; mostly from Spain and Italy to the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the UK.
Hundreds of kilos of cannabis, hashish, cocaine, heroin and amphetamines with street value of EUR 20m were seized in the bust that targetted the ring across Europe; more than 800 kilos of drugs were found in Slovenian trucks.
Lužić was allegedly among the masterminds that steered the operations from the Netherlands, while Kalinić, nicknamed the General, was allegedly the head of the Slovenian branch.
Slovenske Novice said that the specialised prosecution had filed charges against 15 suspects in May 2017, but it took the District Court until November to check whether all the suspects had received their mail.
The court found that charges were received by all but one suspect, who fled to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and was then excluded from the case.
In December, the Higher Court called on the District Court to speed up the procedure, but it took the lower-instance court until mid-January to decide on appeals lodged against the charges by the suspects.
Although the District Court could call the arraignments at this point, it failed to do so and the Higher Court issued another call in early February for the procedures to finally start. Arraignments had also not been called by mid-March, when the Higher Court looked into the matter again.
By the beginning of this week, the Higher Court had no other option but to release the six men, and Slovenske Novice wonders whether they might flee the country in order to avoid trial.
Celje District Court said Friday afternoon that arraignment dates had been set for May, adding that it was impossible to do this earlier because the case records were so vast.
