Skender Sina was accused of taking a bribe while he was working at the Gjeodezia company. He took 20,000 euros from Hasan Berisha in favor of registering properties bought by him.
In 2005, Sina was sentenced to one year in prison by the Municipal Court of Decan, but Sina appealed the sentence and it was suspended.
Two years later, the court of Peja District decided to reexamine the case because of previous mishandling of the case. The claimant’s recordings were not sent to a forensic laboratory.
The case was at risk of expiring and passing out the statute of limitations.
“We sent a request to the Ministry of Judicial for judicial assistance because if the recordings are not examined by the laboratory, then this case can not be resolved,” said Elmaze Syka, head of Peja Court.
The Ministry of Justice responded one day after Syka’s statement:
“On 17th December 2012 we received a request for international judicial assistance from the court of Gjilan regarding the expertise of a recording considered as evidence in a juridical contest by this court. After accepting this request, we decided that this is out of the range of our abilities; we transmitted it to Turkey but we have not yet received an answer.”
The Court sentenced Skender Sina to one year of prison without having the results from the laboratory, evaluating that it wasn’t essential. The judge, Syl Lokaj, declined to comment on this verdict.
The prosecutor, Agron Matjani, called the decision to go forward without the results to be institutional negligence.
Matjani said this case should not have taken 10 years; it should have been made a priority because it was a corruption case.
The Head of the Juridical Council of Kosovo Enver Peci said that they were aware that the case was in danger of passing out of the statute of limitations and that this episode is very disturbing.