Indictment against eight defendants for money laundering and document forgery is dropped

The Basic Court in Pristina has dismissed the indictment for money laundering and document forgery against eight defendants in the case known as the “American Hospital”. The Basic Court has concluded that what the defendants did for forgery does not constitute forgery, and has assessed that the more favorable Criminal Code, the one from 2012, should be applied, according to which criminal prosecution for money laundering is now outdated.

Mbt: The Basic Court in Pristina has made a decision in the "American Hospital" case. The first instance has dismissed the indictment for money laundering and document forgery against eight defendants in the case known as the "American Hospital".

In this case, the accused are the owner of "Medbrand KS", Edlira Galanxhi-Malaj, together with her company, then the company "American Hospital Kosova" together with the main shareholder Klodian Allajbeu, the hospital director, Ilgi Larashi, the "Kosovo Cardiac Center", as well as its directors and owners, Ekrem and Korab Lluka.

The Basic Court in Pristina has found that the investigation into forgery began late and that the criminal prosecution was outdated from the beginning of the investigation. 

"According to Article 106, paragraph 1, sub-paragraph 1.5 of the 2012 CCK, the relative statute of limitations for criminal offenses punishable by over one (1) year and up to three (3) years of imprisonment was three (3) years. Meanwhile, the prosecution has issued a decision to initiate investigations on 12.10.2022, which means that these criminal offenses were already subject to absolute statute of limitations, because eight (8) and seven (7) years had passed since their commission, respectively," states the Basic Court's Decision on the "American Hospital" case.

In addition to considering forgery as a necessary act for the criminal offense of money laundering to exist, the Basic Court also found that the indictment does not make it clear who and how laundered the money.

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The trial panel, among other things, asked the rhetorical question of how the prosecution knows that non-existent properties were purchased with money of illegal origin, when they could have been purchased with legal money. 

"Since we are talking about profitable companies, which have various annual revenues from their activities (i.e. they did not have the alleged illegal money as their sole source), the question that requires clarification arises: with what evidence has the prosecution proven that precisely with that illegal money, "imaginary properties" were purchased, and not with legal money within the framework of their business? The prosecutor has not given this answer, has not argued, and this claim remains only within the framework of "assumptions-conjectures", but not a claim argued with incontestable evidence," the ruling states.

The court has found that as long as the signature of another person is not misused, the criminal offense of "forgery of a document" cannot be established. 

"From the above reasoning, it clearly results that we are not dealing with document forgery, even in those situations when the document is signed by the authorized person (the signature is authentic-original), but its content is false or incorrect. For example: when a regular doctor issues a medical certificate with false content, that is, when it does not correspond to the real condition of the patient.¹ The criminal offense of document forgery exists only if the following conditions are met: - the authentic content of the document has been changed (by adding or removing numbers, making improvements, adding sentences, etc.), the signature has been changed (the signature of the document issuer has been forged) or both at the same time," the ruling states.

The Special Prosecution Office claims that five entrepreneurs and three businesses laundered 3 million and 482 thousand euros.

According to the Prosecution, they did this by carrying out fictitious circulation among themselves, which, according to the Prosecution, stemmed from forgery.

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Through forged documents, according to the Special Prosecution Office, the transfer and circulation of money from one account to another was enabled, in which case they kept a portion of the money in their possession and withdrew it in the name of dividends, which they used to purchase real estate.
The prosecution, in a response to KOHA, said that it will file an appeal against the ruling to dismiss the indictment.

"We inform you that the Special Prosecution, regarding the decision of the Basic Court in Pristina to drop the indictment in the case of EG and others, will exercise the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal. Therefore, the appeal will be filed within the legal deadline, in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure," said the spokesperson for the Special Prosecution, Arbnora Luta.