The trial of six men indicted for the assassination of the Nacional weekly's co-owner and reporter Ivo Pukanic and for the murder of his business associate Niko Franjic as a collateral victim was adjourned by 7 April in order to give enough time for defendant Bojan Guduric's new defence lawyer Andrej Ilic to prepare for this job which he took over last Friday.
The trial's presiding judge, Ivana Krsul, overruled a motion by the defence teams that that their appeal for independence of the judicial branch of the authority should be ensured by other office-holders.
According to the defence teams their appeal was prompted by the developments following what they said the public campaign against the presiding judge Krsul after some text messages from Pukanic's iPhone were published in some media.
The defence teams fear that this situation could jeopardise their defendants' right to a fair trial.
The judge overruled the proposal explaining that the courtroom was not a venue for public debates.
