Court changes the qualification of the charge in the case of the unverified preparation

The criminal panel of the Basic Court in Podgorica has changed the legal qualification of the charge in the case of the suspected Botox preparation, requalifying the offense charged against Ukrainian national Julija Kušnarova from “a grave offense against people’s health in connection with fake medicine” to “negligent provision of medical assistance,” as Pobjeda writes.

According to Pobjeda’s reporting, the panel, deciding on the prosecution’s appeal, changed the decisions of the investigating judge: for Kušnarova, suspected of performing aesthetic treatments, the measures of an obligation to report to a state body and the temporary seizure of her passport were set, while Dražen Lakićević, who sold her the preparation, was banned from leaving his home, because of the well-founded suspicion that he committed the extended criminal offense of illegal trade. In its reasoning, the court stressed the “real and objective risk” that the suspect could use his professional contacts to continue the illegal activity.

The reason for the requalification, according to the court’s reasoning, is that the suspect is a doctor — a dermatologist — by profession, while the investigating judge’s decision of September 27 states that the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation recognized her diploma from the Faculty of Medicine in Kyiv on September 4, 2026. The court took into account that the suspect did not perform the treatments in a registered institution, that there are grounds for suspicion that she ordered the drugs illegally and that she had no work license as a foreign doctor, and therefore concluded there is a well-founded suspicion that, as a doctor, she acted negligently in providing medical assistance. Meanwhile, as Pobjeda writes, the Medical Chamber of Montenegro confirmed that Kušnarova had no license and had not requested a temporary license either, criticizing the court for having “mistakenly” drawn from the recognized diploma the impression that the suspect had gained the right to work as a doctor.

More than a week after two women with botulism symptoms were admitted to the Clinic for Infectious Diseases of the Clinical Center of Montenegro, it is still not known whether anyone has checked what was in the preparation injected into them. The Institute for Medicines and Medical Devices told the newspaper that the preparation has still not been delivered to it, while the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica has not answered repeated questions as to whether, and to whom, the preparation has been sent for expert examination. The Institute has warned that drugs such as Dysport must be transported and stored in the so-called cold chain and that falsified batches of this medicine have been discovered in recent years in several countries, for which the World Health Organization had issued a warning in 2022.