Lawyers in Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro Question Sky ECC Data Legality, June 30 2023

Using data from the cracked communication application Sky ECC is a worrying development that violates defendants' right to a far trial, lawyers from all three countries warned.

Data from the SKY ECC communications app, seized in a French and Dutch-led police operation, cannot be legally used in criminal proceedings, lawyers from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro concluded in a debate in Belgrade...

Belgrade University Law Faculty Professor Vanja Bajovic said that besides privacy issues, using Sky ECC communications in criminal proceedings in Serbia could violate the right to a fair trial...

Miodrag Stojanovic, a lawyer from Bosnia, said the judiciary there has been facing cases related to Sky ECC since November 2022.

According to him, people were arrested, put in custody and indicted based on Sky ECC communications without a court decision on whether this was legally obtained evidence or not.

The legality of obtaining such evidence is contested also in Montenegro.

Bojana Franovic Kovacevic from Montenegro’s Bar Association said that some cases in the Prosecution Office are based only on SKY ECC communications...

When a Franco-Dutch police operation cracked the code to Sky ECC in February 2021, investigators gained access to a treasure trove of real-time evidence against a host of international crime gangs.

In Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Montenegro and Slovenia, over 100 people have since been arrested and charged as a result of evidence obtained from Sky ECC and passed on by the French and Dutch, for crimes involving drug trafficking, murder and kidnapping.

Experts, however, warns concerns about the legality of how the data is handed over and stored, and can this data be admissible in courts.