Market announcement

Title

Overview of the land-swapping case

Message

Today, on 10 December 2009 at the Harju County Court, the last hearing of this
year was held in the “land-swapping” case and thus AS Järvevana provides its
investors an overview of events having occurred so far. 

Nearly 30 witnesses summoned by the Prosecutor's Office have been examined. All
witnesses have confirmed that the land-swappings were legal; also none of the
witnesses of the prosecution have been aware about promising or giving a bribe
to the officials. Witnesses of the defence have not yet been examined. 

Between examinations of the witnesses, documentary evidence has been furnished
by the public prosecutors. Basically, such evidence has been introduced which
show that a former subsidiary of AS Järvevana, OÜ Woody, wished to swap and
swapped lands. According to estimates of AS Järvevana, there has been no
documentary evidence introduced, which would refer to the promising or giving a
bribe or to illegality of the swapping transactions. 

All counsels of the accused have repeatedly brought the attention of the court
to the fact that the Prosecutor's Office does not allow the defence to exercise
its right of defence, since the Prosecutor's Office does not indicate the
relevance of the evidence as well as its connection to the subject of proof. 

Counsels are of the opinion that purely formal reading of the documents,
without knowledge of the relevance of the evidence, as well as knowledge of
which of the accused, in which episode and regarding which facts of the subject
of proof is concerned and how this evidence is intended to be used against a
particular accused person is virtually a fictitious act, which does not ensure
the right of defence and which is contrary to the adversarial nature of the
proceedings. 

On 07.12.2009 attorney at law Leon Glikman, counsel of AS Järvevana, submitted
to the court another application with references to decisions of the European
Court of Human Rights, regarding continuous violation of the right of defence.
Attorney at law Aivar Pilv, counsel of Reiljan, submitted a similar application
on 08.12.2009. The court has suspended introduction of the documentary
evidence, since all counsels have not yet had an opportunity to prepare
appropriate applications for the respective persons being defended. 

Also, AS Järvevana has still no clarity regarding the powers of judges, who
have issued appropriate permits for secret surveillance. On 12.11.2009 AS
Järvevana made an announcement that it received an official reply to the
explicit enquiry made by the defence counsel on 14.10.2009 regarding the powers
of the judges Orvi Tali and Eda Murak to issue permits for secret surveillance,
pursuant to which the Chairman of the court upon article 12 (2) and (3) of the
Courts Act and articles 24 (4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure appointed
besides himself aforesaid judges for issuing permits for surveillance - upon
directive nr 8-1/17 dated 23.09.2005 a judge Orvi Tali from 05.01.2009 and upon
directive nr 8-1/3 dated 02.01.2006 a judge Eda Murak from 05.01.2009. Since
that was an explicit reply to the explicit enquiry regarding a clearly
determined time period, AS Järvevana was not able to doubt that the powers to
issue permits for surveillance commenced from 05.01.2009. 

At the same time, when the Prosecutor's Office has not submitted
counterevidence in the course of the adversarial proceedings, which would
provide that the powers of the judges to issue permits for surveillance might
have arisen earlier than on 05.01.2009, incriminating journalistic speculations
have been published in this question regarding AS Järvevana and its counsel
without any reference to the particular documents (Eesti Päevaleht, 14.11.2009,
Holger Roonemaa). Namely, it was stated in the article that in response to the
explicit enquiry of AS Järvevana with regard to the period of time from
2005-2006, a directive regarding extension of powers for the year 2009 was
submitted and that every year a new directive is prepared with a reference to
the dates and numbers of the earlier directive. 

In actual truth, directives of the Chairman of the Harju County Court submitted
to the counsel of AS Järvevana do not contain any references to the numbers or
to dates of the previous directives, but simply indicate an unusually early
date compared to the start time of the powers. 

AS Järvevana stresses that it is thoroughly aware about the general principles
of documents management upon which in case of documents both in paper and in
digital format, it is necessary to ensure an existence of four obligatory
features (the authenticity, credibility, integrity, usability) within the
entire life cycle of the document and also with respect to the general
administration procedures as well as the internal rules of the court enacted on
31.12.2005 and 01.01.2006 by the Minister of Justice for the respective
periods, which stipulate that the date of the signing and preparation of the
document shall be determined in the document and the document shall be
accordingly registered after signature. 
  
AS Järvevana does not wish to make any prejudgment regarding the aforesaid nor
place the blame on anyone, but at the same time it is also impossible to
understand nor to respond, in addition to the absence of the actual exact dates
of issue of the directives, to the question when and why were the powers to
issue permits for surveillance given to the judge Murak from 05.01.2009, i.e.
at the time she was already retired and her retirement was known about since
autumn 2008, considering that the Chairman of the Supreme Court  made a
proposal to release judge Murak already on 15.10.2008 and the President of 
Estonia  released the judge on 04.11.2008 as of 01.01.2009 upon her own request
http://www.president.ee/et/ametitegevus/otsused.php?gid=121343. 

Considering all of the stated above, any reference to media manipulations
regarding AS Järvevana and/or its counsel are absolutely unfounded. AS
Järvevana will continue in-depth examination of these problems until clear and
satisfactory answers are obtained in order to avoid undue speculations. Said
issue will be on the front burner presumably at the beginning of 2010, when the
court will take a position, whether the surveillance protocols are eligible for
disclosure in the light of the European Convention on Human Rights,
constitutionality and legality. 

AS Järvevana expresses its hope that if persons have been monitored and tapped
over the years, it has been performed in a legal manner and based on correct
powers and permits properly registered and dated and issued by the court in
advance. The European Court of Human Rights has also brought attention to these
requirements, including transparency of the basis for surveillance. 

AS Järvevana confirms once again that having gone through all compiled
material, we are certain that all land-swapping transactions have been
performed legally, including swappings performed by the former subsidiary of AS
Järvevana, OÜ Woody. 

Teet Roopalu
Member of the supervisory board
AS Järvevana