Long awaited, though not quite eagerly, the trial of Dragomir Gvozdic commenced on Saturday July 30th. The man appeared as a shadow of his former self as he was led into the Wizengamot to face a full, open trial. The media publicity, undoubtedly adding to the decision to open the trial to the public, especially following the murder of his right hand woman – Vilhelda Oovegr.
A sombre applause greeted Gvozdic as he pleaded not guilty, to little surprise from the rest of the viewing gallery.
The afternoon was full of evidence to help the Wizengamot prepare to make their decision the following day.
Niamh Horrell, Auror, took the stand first to provide her evidence as lead investigator of the case. It appeared that the testimonies provided were largely circumstantial, with damning evidence, that could lead to a conviction, being provided through the use of legilimency and thus decided upon as inadmissible. Despite this the key evidence is a skip coded letter (a letter where you would skip words to form a secret message) telling Oovegr that the “gift” would arrive before Christmas. This gift is heavily suspected to be the poisoned bottle of wine that arrived to Golovin anonymously, and was ultimately the cause of his death.
Further evidence was provided that Gvozdic was strongly implicated in the use of a forbidden curse upon the former second Champion of Durmstrang, Gabriel Engstrom to implicate him as the murderer of Matvey Golovin. This convoluted plot involved the cursing of a Hogwarts student to make THEM attempt to murder Gvozdic himself and thus be easily found out as Engstrom being the “culprit”.
The testimony of Dagmar Gaard corroborated this, she reportedly was attacked and cursed by Gvozdic in the days leading up to his arrest to avoid her reporting him as the murderer.
Professor Aoife O’Keeffe, Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was called to the stand in a shocking twist which none expected, to explain why she had chosen – following Engstrom’s use of the imperius curse on a student – to not hand Engstrom over to the authorities to investigate. It appears that O’Keeffe had strong suspicions that Gvozdic was behind the attempt on his own life and trusted Gabriel as he had memories missing when she examined his mind using legilimency, and due to the decisions of The Goblet of Fire – a statement that was met with a scathing response from the accused.
Following Gaard’s testimony, recounting the attack on her by Gvozdic, the court was recessed until today (Sunday 31st July), where more evidence will be heard followed by the final decisions of the court.