What is Removed Poplasen Doing?

OUT OF PRISON THANKS TO PRESIDENT"S CLEMENCY

AIM Banja Luka, July 10, 1999

Is Carlos Vestendorp, who will in a few days hand over the office of High Representative for B&H to Wolfgang Petrich, Austrian diplomat, too busy packing or simply no longer cares for the political "loops" of the removed President of the Republic of Srpska, Nikola Poplasen? Be it as it may, Office of the High Representative did not utter a word regarding Poplasen's latest decision of June 23 to pardon as much as 23 convicts. At least not publicly. In contrast to Vestendorp, the RS media devoted much attention to this "act of President's clemency" reminding the public on that occasion of Poplasen's amnesty of ten persons, including some criminals who had been convicted for murder and had not served a day in prison, as well as fugitives which he granted in early March.

Just like in March, this time too Poplasen was most inclined towards convicts from Bijeljina and its surroundings. By stopping the proceedings, the relieved RS President acquitted two persons from persecution. In 19 cases he commuted the pronounced prison sentence for a suspended sentence. Eight pardoned convicts were from Bijeljina and Ugljevik. He partially acquitted seven persons from various parts of the RS. By his decision on amnesty of June 23, Poplasen set free six persons, out of which five were from Bijeljina and one from Pale.

Apart from the fact that for over three months since Vestendorp relieved him of office, Nikola Poplasen was no longer allowed to exercise presidential functions so that consequently, his decisions on granting pardon are invalid, the "territorial distribution" of the pardoned persons made Poplasen's act rather intriguing. Namely, rumour has been going around for some time that pardons which Nikola Poplasen signs have their price and that this act of clemency costs thousands of German Marks. Naturally, decisions on pardoning the convicted persons are prepared by Poplasen's counsellor, Slobodan Cvijetic, attorney-at-law from Bijeljina whose duty is to "charge for the services". Mother of one of those pardoned by the March decision was even willing to speak about that openly and offered proof to an editorial office about the price she had to pay for her son's freedom, but changed her mind in the last moment. Thus everything remained on the "grapevine" and guesswork.

However, it is interesting that at the time of granting pardons both in March and June, Poplasen did not observe legal procedure, nor unwritten, but customary, criteria on granting pardon.

So in March, among other people, he pardoned three RS citizens who had been convicted of war crimes in the B&H Federation. Savo Ivanovic from Srbobran - convicted in Sarajevo to 15 years of prison, Milan Hrvacevic from Kragujevac - also convicted in Sarajevo to 10 years of prison and Dusko Pasalic - convicted in Zenica to 12 years of prison were exchanged in January this year on the basis of an agreement between ministries of justice of the entities, but under a condition that they serve their sentences to the full. Nevertheless, Poplasen pardoned them to which Vestendorp reacted harshly. By that same act Poplasen pardoned Mladen Dimic from Prijedor who was sentenced to 12 years of prison for murder. By his pardon of 1995 Radovan Karadzic had reduced Dimic's sentence by two years, and by later amnesty his sentence was reduced for another year. That was not enough for Poplasen who set him free.

In March Poplasen also granted pardon to Drago Stevanovic from Lopare who back in 1997 had been convicted of murder and sentenced to four and a half years in prison and has never started serving his sentence. He will never go to prison because he has been fully acquitted. Although it is customary to pardon exemplary prisoners who repent while serving their sentence, Poplasen has also pardoned Dejan Mora from Ugljevik who escaped from prison and was on the run for over a year and a half. He was sentenced to six years in prison for causing a serious traffic accident and the death of one person.

What made Poplasen's March decision particularly suspicious was the fact that the majority of the ten convicts in question were granted pardon before they ever applied for it. The procedure according to which first the court and prison authorities, and finally Minister of Justice should give their opinion before the President can bring such a decision, was not observed. Consequently, there were absurd cases when the court or the Justice Minister suggested the rejection of the application for pardon two days after the pardon had already been granted.

In view of all the above a "semi-official" version appeared according to which Poplasen brought the decision on pardons after March 5, when he was already relieved of office and had no right to bring it and that the date on the decision March 3, was inscribed later.

After this decision, the High Representative explicitly forbade Poplasen to sign any acts on amnesty. But, three months later, just as the media and rumour-mongering public have calmed down over these intriguing amnesties, and when everyone least expected, on June 23, Poplasen brought another decision granting pardons.

This time he did not even try to observe the procedure. Ministry of Justice learned of his decision only subsequently in a round-about way because Poplasen had forwarded his decision directly to courts and prisons "for execution". Poplasen had informed the convicts and their families of his decision before informing the Justice Minister Milan Trbojevic. After that the Minister urgently sent a circular letter to courts and penal institutions warning them not to carry out Poplasen's decision and, if possible, to keep the information about invalid pardons from those in question in order to "avoid unnecessary problems". However, in that same letter he also expressed his suspicion that that was precisely the intention of Poplasen's decision

• "to alarm the public and cause its dissatisfaction with the RS Government". Minister Trbojevic also sent a letter to Vice-Prime Minister Mirko Sarovic reminding him of Vestendorp's ban and asking his support and assistance.

Irrespective of Poplasen's decision, none of those pardoned on June 23, has been released. The only consequence of this decision were articles in the press which do not show Poplasen in favourable light. The moot point is what did the former President want to achieve with this act apart from raising a political scandal which was inevitable. Have his counsellors advised him wrongly so that Poplasen thought that he could liberate the pardoned "by the back door", sidestepping the institutions? Or perhaps his aim was to destabilise the Dodik's Cabinet as he wanted to show the public in practice how he grants pardons, but the RS Government "revokes" them.

Milkica Milojevic (AIM)