by Drago HEDL
Police Chief Jezercic, the best man of Osijek-Baranja County Governor Branimir Glavas, wanted to shock the public with the number of illegal acts committed by Kljajic's sons, but he failed to explain whether someone has to commit more than one hundred illegal acts to prompt the Police to do something about that. He accused Kljajic's sons of committing traffic violations, but he failed to say anything about his violent and arrogant behavior in traffic, simply ignoring the fact that after a traffic accident in the Osijek suburb Visnjevac, on March 12, 1999, Jezercic simply left the accident site instead of waiting for the arrival of the investigating magistrate. Driving the official vehicle of the make Volkswagen Passat, owned by the Police and with number plates OS 800 CA, Dubravko Jezercic participated in a traffic accident and crashed into a Renault OS 633 BZ, but he left the accident site as soon as the Police showed up. Investigative magistrate Mirko Rozac who is legally obliged to carry out an investigation when one of the participants in the accident is a Police employee, the following day put together a memorandum stating that Jezercic had not waited for his arrival. These days a rumor circulated through Osijek alleging that Jezercic had good reasons for leaving the accident site, not because of the material damages, which amounted to about 50,000 Kunas, but because of the condition in which he was. The Police Chief could have easily killed these rumors by simply waiting for the investigative magistrate.
However, Jezercic's arrogance in traffic is a small trifle compared with the lie that he does not own a restaurant as Kljajic has alleged. The President of the District Court in Osijek stated that Jezercic would do better to stick to his waiting duties, "since he already owns Restaurant Grand, into which he has invested a lot of money". Jezercic denied at the press conference that he owned "any restaurant," and even distributed a written, although unsigned, statement to that effect to the journalists. Feral's investigation, which was at the very start greeted by a warning from a former policeman to this journalist to stay away from Jezercic's property, indicated the opposite. Jezercic is the owner of the house in 41 Strossmayer St. in Osijek, as Feral established beyond any doubt from the entry in the local cadastre number 2930, issued on November 8 1999 in the Municipal Court in Osijek. The mentioned house is the imposing restaurant Grand, on two floors, with a large parking lot in the very center of Osijek (total size of the house and parking lot is 725 meters square!).
In general Jezercic likes to portray himself as a very humble person and likes to emphasize that he hasn't used his position to enrich himself. He claims that until recently he drove a Yugo ("My connections with Yugoslavia amount to the vehicle Yugo 55, which I bought in 1989"). However cadastral books indicate otherwise. Jezercic's hypocrisy and big words behind which he likes to hide are clearly visible from the discrepancies between his claims and actions. In eight pages of the statement distributed to the journalists, Jezercic literally said the following (quoted with only the most necessary corrections): "For me, as well as all other employees of this Police station, there are no untouchable citizens, since the Croatian state and the Croatian State Parliament, which enacts Croatian laws, are sacred to us and we are dedicated to them. Gentlemen, there are no exceptions in the application of Croatian laws towards anyone, since those who do not respect Croatian laws, I an convinced, do not respect that for which we fought." However, in spite of all pathetic patriotism, Jezercic knows very well that exactly Branimir Glavas, his best friend and best man, has many more traffic violations than both of Kljajic's sons. Glavas openly drove on the street that was closed for traffic and parked wherever he liked. When a citizen berated him for that Glavas in his characteristically arrogant manner replied: "When Lazo and Jovo [Serbs] drove along the same street, you did not mind, but now when I am driving, you complain!"
However, Jezercic's pathetic hypocrisy about the respect for laws (consider the episode with the departure from the accident site) is best illustrated by the statement of the judge of the municipal court in Osijek, Ivan Vulic, who on his own skin experienced Jezercic's refined sense for the respect of "Croatian laws which are sacred to us". On December 29 1995 the municipal state prosecutor in Osijek filed an indictment against three policemen at the Osijek Municipal Court. One of the indicted policemen, Zeljko Lasic, is to this day a high official at the Osijek Police station. The three policemen committed crimes against public order and human rights and freedoms by overstepping their authority and "maltreating" citizens. The case reached municipal judge Vulic and Dubravko Jezercic was summoned to testify. After Jezercic's failure to appear in court even after several summons, on February 5, 1997, at the main hearing one of the accused provoked the judge by mocking him and telling him that "Chief Jezercic has told you to come personally to arrest him."
Various rumors about Petar Kljajic, at this point already the former president of the District Court, have these days been spectacularly confirmed by Branimir Glavas, Kljajic's old friend, colleague and associate. The two of them have harmoniously shared power in Osijek for the last ten years. Kljajic and Glavas together founded the HDZ and both of them are considered to be HDZ veterans with all the appropriate privileges. Glavas' suddenly awakened conscience and his decision to publicly state after more than ten years what he has always known about Kljajic is perhaps the best illustration of the current relations between the people in power. All of them know of each other's rotting wounds, but point them out only if somebody dares to step on their foot. Only when Kljajic indicated that he would speak out about Glavas' dirty hands, mentioning the Hague and corpses that in 1991 floated down the Drava river, Glavas recalled that "Kljajic is a dangerous man; murders and blood vengeance have taken place around him. Although he managed to hide his true character during his tenure, there are documents about all of that in the court, Police and prison archives. The public should pass its judgment now about all of that, since the responsible officials in this state have closed their eyes and appointed such a person to head the District Court as early as in 1990." Glavas says that today without any shame, although everyone in Osijek and Slavonija knows that without his blessing not even a receptionist could find a job in 1990. Glavas stooped so low in his "unmasking" of his colleague from the HDZ that alluding to the nationality of Kljajic's wife and accusing him for the staged trial of the Sodolovac group he said the following: "If (Kljajic) believes that his standing in the public improves after arrests of poor Serbs, let him start with his own bed!" If Glavas wanted to be consistent he should have addressed that remark also to his best man, Police chief Jezercic.
The removal of Petar Kljajic, for whom no one in Osijek will shed a tear, since everyone in Osijek has for a long time been aware of the "scandalous" information recently recalled by Glavas, is only the most recent phase in Glavas' struggle against "crime, mafia, thievery" and, as we've learned, unsolved murders. Glavas cannot function differently and soon he will have a new enemy against whom he will apply all his power using the media under his control and the power base he has created. Whether the new enemy will be Jezercic, depends on the path Glavas chooses and whether his best man will still be needed on that path.