The Government Plans to Create an Anti-Organized Crime Bureau

AIM Zagreb, November 6, 2000

For some time now Zagreb's reality has become reminiscent of American gangster movies depicting showdowns of various Mafia groups as taking place in broad daylight. The true magnitude of organized crime in Croatia, however, is anybody's guess at present. The recent trial of a group of 17 criminals -- racketeers, loan sharks and murderers -- arrested several months ahead of the election in Croatia in a bid by the Croatian Democratic Union to win over public support, has become an exam that the "law-abiding state of Croatia" will either pass or fail. Failure would mean a detour from the path of integration into European and world organizations, which is the country's and society's sole path of salvation from the all-pervading crisis.

The trial of this criminal organization is interesting in its other elements as well. After almost a year in pre-trial custody, Tomislav Marin, one of the defendants, decided to speak up. By selling out his former colleagues, he is trying to get himself a softer prison sentence, but despite his motives and the trustworthiness of his testimony -- which many doubt after his false and overblown (auto)biography was published in the news media -- someone has at least decided to speak, someone that was highly placed in an organization to which illegal profit was of such importance that it did not shun murdering members of rival clans to retain it.

The criminal organization, also called the Bagaric Clan, after Zlatko Bagaric, its chief, was certainly not the only such organization in Croatia. Their true number, however, is only now beginning to emerge. Neither the judiciary nor the media (traditionally better-informed of such deals than the state institutions in charge of them) have a complete picture of organized crime in Croatia. It is widely known that corruption and organized crime have infected every nook and cranny of society, and that no one any longer pays attention to other, everyday forms of corruption, better known as "street bribery."

In order to change this devastating image of society's state of affairs, the proverbially indecisive Croatian government took a step that many believed would never be made: it took steps to form a bureau to curb corruption and organized crime, already known by its acronym -- USKOK (a pun, as the word is also used for brave guerrilla fighters of several centuries ago). The opening of the bureau was announced less than two months ago, and the recent steps that gave the USKOK structure struck the public as rather odd, especially given the government's habitual procrastination in resolving problems. The public is therefore quite reasonably expecting to learn what forced the government's to change its ways.

Last week's lawsuit against Nevenka Tudjman, the daughter of late Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, includes five counts of crimes committed in the sector of economy, leading to the illegal acquisition of some DM600,000. Nevenka Tudjman had persons who assisted and abated her, and in addition to Igor Knezevic, the sales agent and technician who installed telephones and telephone exchanges he had sold with the help of Nevenka Tudjman's "prestige and prominent social position." According to a report published in the Feral Tribune paper at the beginning of the year, Nevenka Tudjman thus "earned" 2.6 million kuna in cash (over DM700,000). The police are now searching for other accomplices in this disgraceful operation.

Let us go back once more to the Bagaric Clan. The 250-page indictment mentions the name of Vjeko Slisko, "Croatia's king of entertainment," who is also said to be the leader of a rival clan, only here and there, most frequently as a person who had survived two attempts on his life by the Bagaric Clan, of which one resulted in the death of an innocent bystander. Unofficial sources in the Justice Ministry, however, say that one of the first investigations the new Bureau will launch ought to be into the activities of Vjeko Slisko and his clan.

The same sources say that the target of the USKOK future actions should be some former senior state officials as well, mostly members of the Croatian Democratic Union, a party that today, after its removal from power, is definitely falling apart. Namely, a report by the State Auditing Service covering several years of operation of a part of the bodies of state administration and local self-rule, contains hundreds of pages listing innumerable instances of illegal money spending, and a nonexistent account from which payments were made. The same manner of carrying out financial transactions was in practice in the Office of Croatian President and the Cabinet, as well as in all ministries and state institutions. In addition, the news media are speculating that the USKOK could finally clarify the mystery of who actually owns the Vecernji List paper. This still unresolved scandal, one of the biggest that was left behind by the former government, involves property estimated at tens of millions of German marks.

The USKOK, on which a special law should be passed by the year's end, is envisaged to operate as an office of the state attorney, though with broader powers. In order to form it, the Croatian Penal Code and the Law on the Penal Procedure will first have to be amended, so as to give a broader authority to investigative bodies and facilitate investigation. This should also serve to prevent an until recently frequent occurrence: potential culprits would disappear at the last moment or simply declare themselves poor souls not having even enough money to feed themselves, let alone millions procured through smuggling and trading in drugs and stolen cars.

The USKOK should coordinate the operation of existing state bodies that can help in the struggle against organized crime -- the Financial Police, Internal Revenue and Customs Services, the Bureau for Preventing Money Laundering, the police. The USKOK should also be organized in such a manner as to eliminate the possibility for other bodies to avoid complying with orders coming from the bureau or to obstruct its investigations. Furthermore, the forming of a special police unit under the direct command of the USKOK has been envisaged, as well as of a special service to safeguard USKOK agents, protected witnesses and repented witnesses, institutions still not fully defined by existing laws.

A special prosecutor will be at the helm of the USKOK, who, along with his seven deputies (all of whom will have the status of state attorneys) and several financial, database and criminology experts, will gather information, investigate and cooperate with similar international institutions, in order to at least curb, if not once and for all root out, widespread crime in Croatia. The USKOK Project, put together by Deputy State Attorney Dragan Novosel (probably the future head of the USKOK as well), is based on the Italian Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) Campaign, which was successfully planned and carried out, and which resulted in the discovery of many cases of corruption and crime involving the highest state officials in Italy.

How successful the USKOK Project will be in Croatia, and it has already received substantial aid from Europe, will primarily depend on the quality of the bill that will regulate it and that should be adopted by the end of the year. In the Justice Ministry the forming of a working group in charge of preparing the bill is in progress, and the document should then pass through Parliament, which will take place swiftly. Thus, Parliament will have the final say in the forming of the USKOK and determining its powers. But since many of the parliament's seats are held by those who should be considered responsible for the uncontrolled growth of the mob in Croatia, a fierce debate on, and obstruction of, the USKOK Project may well be expected.

Milivoj Djilas

(AIM)