Use of Abuse

Former Regime on Trial

Almost one hundred high officials of Milosevic's regime are at this moment either in custody, subjected to investigation or awaiting investigation and trial. The announced and expected charges for criminal acts, economic crimes or the so far most frequent accusation - of abuse of office, will affect a much larger number of persons

AIM Belgrade, May 21, 2001

As customary, the sceptics do not believe in such an outcome. Their arguments are strong, as always. The judiciary of Serbia and the police operate with practically the same personnel as at Milosevic's time. Replacement of persons whose job was preservation of the former regime was made in the past seven months - or, when the new authorities of Serbia are concerned, in the past 100 days – have proceeded at unexpectedly slow pace and within a comparatively narrow circle. A part of the public is inclined to assess this sluggishness as a sign of a prudent and thorough approach of the new authorities, but it has difficulties explaining why a number of known figures - in the police, for example - have remained at their posts or have even been promoted.

Numerous "incidental" phenomena do not at all contribute to elimination of suspicion about the resoluteness of the new authorities to do away with all those who had distinguished themselves in the course of the past decade by their concern for the people and their own wealth. The scandal of alleged sexual harassment of women associates and employees of the government has cost Vuk Obradovic his post of deputy prime minister, but the ruling coalition did not see it fit to replace him at the post of the president of the commission for the struggle against corruption by somebody who would at least as acting president, continue the work until nomination of the new president. On the other hand, numerous information and misinformation from the very top of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) are leaking all over the place, with equal ease with which certain ministers are announcing indictments, revealed cases of fraud, embezzlement and theft, that reached such proportions that forced some judges protest because disclosing confidential data made their work difficult.

Minister of internal affairs Dusan Mihajlovic informed the public on May 15 that the police know the names of the kidnappers of Milorad Miskovic, local businessman whose ransom was seven million German marks. He could not reveal the facts "in the interest of investigation" and for the sake of procuring evidence valid in court, so his statement was understood and interpreted by some as an excuse because three weeks ago he had promised that he would resign if the kidnappers were not discovered by May 15.

Much more serious doubts are raised by the uncompleted business of discovering the perpetrators and the persons who issued the order for the murder on Ibar main road on Octoner 3, 1999, the probable target of which was Vuk Draskovic, who by pure miracle escaped death while four of his closest associates were killed. Radomir Markovic, former head of State Security Service (RDB) of Serbia, is indicted for organisation and execution of this act; the driver of the truck-murderer Nenad Ilic is in jail, as well as Nenad Bujosevic accused of providing the logistics for the act. Dissatisfied with the course of the investigation, Draskovic's team of lawyers raised criminal charges against some 12 persons who the court was not interested in. The best known among them is Milorad Ulemek Lukovic alias Legija, commander of the unit for special operations of RDB, who has been suspended and was subjected to investigation because of a recent shooting and arson in a cafe in Kula.

Former head of Belgrade state security centre Milan Radonjic and his assistant Branko Crni were arrested in March and with two other workers of this centre are subjected to investigation for secret tapping and tailing Goran Petrovic and Jovica Stanisic, the current and former head of RDB, current assistant federal minister of internal affairs Stevan Nikcevic, Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, Vuk Draskovic and Slavko Curuvija. They are also indicted for destruction of official documentation, which is corroborated by the discovery published by independent media at the time of Milosevic's regime that in the official notes on tailing Slavko Curuvija on the day he was murdered there is a gap of about 80 minutes. The murder of the owner of Dnevni telegraf has not been clarified yet, just as it does not seem that the trial to murderers of Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan will reveal who had actually issued the order.

The murder of Klara Mandic last week allegedly in a robbery - although the murderer was caught in less than 48 hours - also stirs up suspicion about somebody's interest to remove awkward witnesses. Klara Mandic was in the beginning of the nineties one of those "liaison persons" between Milosevic's regime and executors of its undertakings such as pyramidal banks, Society of Serb-Jewish Friendship, "Serbs from across the Drina" and all sorts of personages on the political scene at the time. After the robbery - of one fur coat, a mobile phone - the murderer set the apartment on fire, using papers which "were not newspapers": this makes many people wonder what papers they were.

Among the prominent figures of Milosevic's regime, Mihalj Kertes certainly belongs among the most conspicuous ones. He began his political career as the earliest champion of the "yoghurt revolution" in Voivodina (which helped Milosevic get to power), then he was the "minister for the people" in the government of Serbia; after the then federal prime minister Milan Panic had sent him back from the peace conference in London because he was "wired", he got the job of the security chief of (pyramidal) Dafiment Bank at the very moment when "big" and important depositors were carrying sack-loads of foreign money out of the country. He ended his career as the director of Federal Customs Administration where he became famous for his declaration that every customs official is entitled to a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky, but also for his not so public role of the procurer of cash for the regime and profitable business deals for specially selected businessmen, Marko Milosevic inclusive. New Yugoslav authorities arrested Mihalj Kertes as the closest Milosevic's associate in December last year but he spent just five days in prison. It seems that he agreed

• or perhaps even offered - to cooperate in the investigation: along with Nikola Sainovic and Jovan Zebic, former deputies prime minister in the federal government, Kertes might be the key witness against Slobodan Milosevic, at least in the part of the investigation which charges all four for damage done to the federal and the republican budget amounting to 1,8 billion dinars and 200 million German marks.

Against the most famous and the best guarded prisoner, Slobodan Milosevic, the investigation is conducted, among other, for usurping a lot by the house he lives in on Dedinje without a proper permit, which - quite understandably - causes wonder and anger not only of Carla del Ponte. It was announced that the investigation against Milosevic would be expanded, but there is no indication what direction it may take. The employees of the presidency of Serbia, former Milosevic's advisors and persons who were in contact with him concerning most delicate issues in the course of the past 13 years, unanimously confirm that the former president of Serbia and FRY has left nothing behind in writing. To the banal question whether it is really impossible to establish his connection with the horrible developments in dissolution of former Yugoslavia, nobody gives a clear answer. Under pressure of the international community and Washington, the federal government will have to pass the law on cooperation with the Hague Tribunal in the next few weeks: extradition to the Hague will become reality, even if there will be bargaining about the date.

Along with Milosevic, this will become reality to the other four indicted persons during NATO bombing. Nikola Sainovic has already faced investigation "locally"; President of Serbia Milan Milutinovic will soon have to appear - together with former foreign minister Zivorad Jovanovic

• in front of an investigative judge for having illegally issued few diplomatic passports to Milosevic's son Marko. The remaining two out of the first five on the list of the Hague indictments have not been included in the investigation, at least not publicly: former head of the General Staff Dragoljub Ojdanic and former minister of police Vlajko Stojiljkovic. The latter could soon appear in court with former ministers Borislav Milacic, Dragoljub Jankovic, Aleksandar Vucic, Kata Lazovic, Tomislav Milenkovic, Jovan Babovic, Branislav Ivkovic, Zoran Andjelkovic and heads of government administration for reconstruction of the country and property and the development fund of Serbia, former commissioner for refugees and minister for family care Bratislava Morina... Last week the question was raised of their illegal spending of the money from the budget for purposes other than specified, and some of them are claimed to have participated in plunder or taking tens of millions of dollars out of the country.

But Vlajko Stojiljkovic might also be taken to court for the recently published horrible story about the discovery of a refrigerated trailer truck full of corpses of children, women, and the elderly in the Danube near Tekija, on April 6, 1999, and its subsequent destruction. The finding was confirmed by statements of police divers, the municipal investigative judge, public utility workers and eye-witnesses. The investigation was interrupted from a "high instance", the finding proclaimed state secret, and the truck, it seems, destroyed by one of the special police units; the bodies have disappeared.

The names of Milosevic's recent associates are appearing in a number of separate cases: for example, last week's arrest of former republican minister of finance Borislav Milacic is linked to the new indictment of Nikola Sainovic and former director of Politika Hadzi Dragan Antic: this time they were involved in illegal import of equipment for eight TV stations which was probably an undertaking aimed at "covering" the media space before last year's elections. The indictment accuses them of having taken about 2.5 million dollars out of the country and smuggling in the equipment - because it was imported as diplomatic mail, without paying customs duties, but at the expense of the budget of Serbia. Another former media "boss", former director of Radio-Television of Serbia (RTS) Dragoljub Milanovic was taken to court again. Less than a month ago he was released from prison after completion of the investigation for the act against general safety - when 16 workers were killed in bombing of the building of RTS. This time he will face the judge together with Zoran Modrinic director of RTS marketing for having paid eight million dinars (about 270 thousand German marks) to two unnamed singers as a fee.

The self-confidence with which an enormous number of persons in Milosevic's regime undertook such actions and transactions testifies of amazing proportions of corruption. Hadzi Dragan Antic was given apartments for free, or more precisely he never paid back the loans granted him; former minister of transportation Svetolik Kostadinovic "changed" his loan according to the official exchange rate into 200 thousand marks, bought an apartment with this money - and the loan was paid back by Yugoslav railway company Kostadinovic happened to be the director of. Whole books could be written with similar examples: Belgrade city government has recently reached a decision on confiscation of the apartment from Milovan Drecun, former journalist of RTS, who is now president of the Party for Revival of Serbia. It turned out that he had sold his apartment in order to get a new one (for free) from the city Solidarity Fund. The apartment of Rajko Danilovic, Vuk Draskovic's lawyer, was also confiscated, because nobody knows even on what grounds he was put on the list for granting state housing units. The problem is that the city government has managed to nullify only 45 decisions on granting apartments made during the term in office of former Belgrade government of Vuk Draskovic - it is expected to go over another 650 similar decisions.

High official of Milosevic's party and RDB Uros Suvakovic with two colleagues from the Service were engaged in underhand dealings with houses and apartments from the diplomatic housing fund, and former foreign minister Zivadin Jovanovic seems to have taken part in it. Former director of the health insurance administration of Serbia Tomislav Jankovic, who is greatly responsible for the development of the cardiovascular institute in Dedinje and Milovan Bojic's rise to the post of deputy prime minister of Serbia - he participated with Nikola Mitrovic, director of the Institute for Oncology and Radiology and director of Medipharm in purchase of cytostatics and with it caused damage to the administration for more than three million dinars...

This is by no means the end of the list, even if one disregards the arrest of Sinisa Vucinic, president of the party called “Nikola Pasic” Radical Party of the Right and at the same time a high official of Yugoslav Left, the investigation against Marija Milosevic and another thirty odd persons who obstructed the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic on April 1, Milosevic's banker Borka Vucic or his brother Borislav Milosevic who rejected the findings of the Commission for the struggle against economic crime that 3.5 million dollars illegally taken out of FRY were transferred to the account of his firm on Cyprus.

The judiciary and investigating authorities will have a long, hot summer. What certainly will not make it any easier for them is the observation of the known Belgrade lawyer Nikola Barovic that SDB and police are “in fact the strongest criminal organisation in Serbia which still is not cleansed of criminals, nor have the criminal mechanisms been removed”. As a participant at the just ended Belgrade International Conference for Truth and Reconciliation, chairman of the Chamber of Citizens of the Assembly of FRY, Dragoljub Micunovic stated something similar stressing that “the highest corruption and crime rate is in the judiciary and police, and it is very pronounced in other vital state institutions”. If it is comforting at all, this awareness could be the starting point.

Aleksandar Ciric

(AIM)