Better Slave Than in Grave

Tomislav Mikulic forced Branko Markan to sign a contract about placing himself under Mikulic's care until his death. After that, he sold Branko's apartment, and moved Branko to his vacation home at the mouth of the Karasica river to the Drava, and then to the suburb of Visnjevac; later he bought a container in Germany, had it transported to the land owned by the company Jelavic and imprisoned Markan there. Finally, Mikulic moved the container together with Markan to the courtyard of his father's house in Tenja, where he had to take care of 28 pigs, till corn and do anything he was ordered, without any compensation - Gordan Jurkovic, a policeman in the Osijek-Baranja district Police, testified about Markan's position. According to Jurkovic, when he once asked Mikulic to help him with the adaptation of the cellar in his house, Mikulic told him to go see his parents; there he would find Markan, who would in turn work on his cellar. He emphasized to Jurkovic to tell his father that he could let Markan go. Arriving to Tenje, Jurkovic saw in the courtyard Mikulic's father and Markan next to him; based on the agreement he addressed Mikulic's father and told him that Tomo had said that Markan could go with him. After that Mikulic's father allowed Markan to go with Jurkovic

by Drago HEDL

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, May 20, 2000

During the past years there were numerous human rights violations of all sorts in Croatia, but until early May of this year almost no one would have believed that someone would be accused of keeping a slave! Between September 20, 1996 and April 11, 2000, therefore for more than three and a half years, Branko Markan from Osijek was a real slave: he had to perform hard physical labor and was not allowed to move without an explicit approval of his "master". As is customary in slavery, Markan did not receive any compensation for his work. The unbelievable fact that in Croatia on the brink of 21st century someone was a slave for three and a half years, is shocking on its own. However, if one considers that a Police Chief and his close collaborator, also a policeman participated in this scandal, then this event becomes horrific! The indictment against Dubravko Jezercic, until recently the Chief of Osijek-Baranja Police and also arrested Tomislav Mikulic, a 27-years-old retired policeman, issued by the State Prosecutor in Osijek, is so horrific that it deserves a special place in the black book of Police abuses that can take place in the societies where the Police activities are simply outside any control.

Night Raid

Branko Markan had the misfortune that he inherited a family house in the center of Osijek. Unfortunately for Markan, Osijek Police Chief Dubravko Jezercic had plans for the house. Actually, not the house itself, since it was nothing but a ruin, but with the plot it occupied. Jezercic wanted to build a restaurant on that plot. Markan's neighbor Zlatko Kovacevic, the owner of tourist agency Eurotours, otherwise a friend of the former Osijek Police Chief, mentioned several times to Markan that Jezercic was interested in buying his house. However, Markan was not paying attention until one night, upon leaving home, he was accosted by two men. They introduced themselves as policemen, flashed police badges, and invited Markan to follow them to the nearby café Tic-Tac. One of them (who introduced himself as Bono) advised Markan to sell his house in 41 Strossmayer St. to Jezercic. After a short conversation they convinced Markan to discuss the sale with Jezercic and immediately took him to the Police station. There, Jezercic told Markan that he wanted to buy his family home, to which Markan responded that he wasn't interested in selling the house and that he had already rejected several offers. Jezercic offered him DEM 40,000 and explained that he wanted to urgently buy his house because he was supposed to soon afterwards see Minister Ivan Jarnjak and ask him for a house construction loan. After Markan once again rejected the offer, Jezercic mentioned that he had heard that criminals from Osijek district Jug II were interested in Markan's house and that they had supposedly been distributing Markan's photograph in the city. Jezercic advised Markan that he better sell the house to him, since he would anyway have to sell it to the criminals from Jug. However, Markan was firm and left Jezercic's office unaware of his likely future fate, least of all that he would end up in slavery for three and a half years!

The very same night Markan was woken up by shouts "Here he is!" In the dark he spotted two men in overalls and hoods pulled over their heads. One of them jumped on his chest and placed the blunt side of a knife blade against his neck, while the other one pushed a barrel of a gun into his mouth. They told him that they were from Jug II and ordered him to come the following day to the café Kivi with documents for transfer of the deed to the house. Markan told everything that happened that night to his friend Julije Varga.

In his testimony in front of the investigative magistrate Markan stated that he got scared but, keeping in mind everything Jezercic had told him that evening, he soon realized that all that was simply a show that was supposed to intimidate him. The following day in Kivi he met two persons, one of whom, while paying for the drinks, very emphatically flashed a Police badge. Markan heard that someone phoned the other two while they were in the café and they responded by saying "he will cooperate." No one asked him anything that day in Kivi, so he left after a while, even more scared than the previous night; he went to his friend Milan Zubovic and told him everything. That night, out of fear, he slept at Zubovic's place and returned home the following day. There he was greeted by a policeman with the message that he had to come see Chief Jezercic the following day.

Peculiar Inheritance Hearing

When Markan showed up at the Police station the following day, he met for the first time policeman Tomislav Mikulic, the person who would later keep him in slavery for three and a half years. Mikulic was in the room together with Jezercic and the former Osijek Police Chief asked Markan two questions: had the criminals from Jug looked for him and had he changed his mind about the sale of the house? Markan stated in the investigation that he was very scared, that he realized who he was dealing with and that he was better off giving in and selling the house to Jezercic. However, he explained that the inheritance hearing hadn't been conducted and that he wasn't yet the official owner of the house left to him by his parents. Jezercic told him not to worry, took all the necessary data from him and said that he would take care about the inheritance hearing. He promised to buy Markan an apartment in the Osijek district Jug II worth DEM 30,000 and pay Markan another DEM 5,000 in cash.

Two days later Mikulic found Markan and took him to the Municipal Court to an inheritance hearing. Markan was surprised since he hadn't filed a request for an inheritance hearing nor had he received summons from the Court. The hearing went very quickly, and the Judge told him that he would receive the official inheritance documents in two weeks. However, Markan never received these documents. Mikulic told him that he need not worry about the documents any more and ordered him to wait at home that evening. "From then onwards," says the indictment signed by deputy municipal state prosecutor in Osijek Zeljko Ivanusic, "Tomislav Mikulic was constantly with Markan; he frequently visited him, constantly checked on him and frequently used verbal threats to the effect that Markan had to obey or that he would otherwise 'be swallowed by darkness'".

From that point onward, Jezercic's plans went smoothly. Although he had an apartment in the elite part of Osijek, on December 5 1996, he obtained a DEM 60,000 loan for the purchase of land and construction of a family house from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The loan was to be repaid in 30 years, did not require a downpayment, and had a two percent interest rate. Jezercic only needed to wrap up some "technical details" and he left that business to his close collaborator Mikulic. Markan claims that soon afterwards Mikulic took him to the real estate agency Ljubek, where Jezercic demanded that he sign a contract transferring the deed to the house to his name, after which Jezercic would find an apartment for Markan and pay him DEM 5,000. Out of fear and due to pressures and especially death threats, Markan did everything that Jezercic asked from him. At a notary public's office he signed an authorization for the real estate agent Djurdjica Grgic from the agency Ljubek to represent him in all transactions with Jezercic. Later in the investigation, the said agent confirmed that she indeed did represent Markan but that that was the first case in her career in which she represented a customer that she hadn't seen before. The whole transaction of the sale of Markan's house and purchase of the apartment he was supposed to receive in compensation went without Markan's presence. Finally, Mikulic took him to the apartment that had been bought for him, a 25 meters square apartment [roughly a small studio] that Markan did not like at all, especially since the apartment was not in the part of the city where all of his friends and acquaintances lived. Mikulic left with him in the apartment a phone with an unlisted number and said that he did so in order "to be able to fuck around with [Markan]". During the following few days Markan was only receiving threats of the type "do you know what happened to that guy from Australia?" on that phone. He never saw the promised DEM 5,000.

Police Chief's Greed

At this point, before we continue with our story about Markan and slavery in which he is about to fall, we return for a moment to former Police Chief Jezercic. The house and land plot that he had bought from Markan seemed too small to Jezercic for the construction of a restaurant. Consequently, Mikulic again stepped on the stage. He found Ivan Dopsaj, the owner of the house right next to Markan's and asked him whether he was interested in selling his house and land in exchange for an apartment in Osijek. Several months later Mikulic again visited Dopsaj and, claiming to speak on behalf of the Police Chief, suggested to him to give up his rights to the house and land to Jezercic, while Jezercic would in return arrange an apartment for him. Dopsaj agreed and Mikuic took him to a notary public and told him to sign "some sort of a document in connection with the apartment". Dopsaj had no idea what he was signing. It turned out that he signed a contract which stated that he was selling his house for 17,000 [roughly $2,500] Kunas to Jezercic. However, Dopsaj never received those 17,000 Kunas, and Jezercic became the owner of his house and land. The entrance to the parking lot of Jezercic's restaurant Grand is today located at that point. The Tax Directorate estimated that Dopsaj's [trosna] house was worth 30,600 Kunas so that the indictment also charges Jezercic with stealing that amount from the owner of the house. This detail is simply an illustration of Jezercic's greed and desire to at any cost and using all available means fulfill his dream and build the restaurant that he had envisaged.

But, let us return to Markan, the main character of this unbelievable story. Soon after moving into the small apartment in Jug II Markan was visited by Mikulic, who told him that Markan should assign Mikulic and his wife as his guardians until his death. They signed the authorization at a notary public and markan claims that he signed that authorization out of fear and after many death threats. Markan's friends, witnesses questioned in the investigation stated that having in mind his psychological and physical state, there was absolutely no reason for Markan to get a guardian. He was at the time 44 and was fully capable of taking care of himself.

This was confirmed for Feral by witness J.V. who wanted to remain anonymous. J.V. stated that he knew Markan well, that he was very intelligent, a well-read person and even assisted J.V. in translation of some letters to English. J.V. was the only one of three witnesses that Feral has managed to reach who agreed to state something about the case. The other two witnesses, Ivan Dopsaj and Milan Zubovic, obviously still afraid, refused to say anything. When Mikulic concluded with the guardianship contract with Markan, he told him that he had to sell his apartment since he needed the money in order to lend it with interest. Mikulic moved Markan out of the apartment, so that Markan lived for about three months with his friend J.V.

Slave Work

Mikulic sold the apartment to certain Milan Ikic for DEM 30,000. Markan's friend J.V. claims that for three months Mikulic paid Markan DEM 100 per month, and also from time to time brought him food and cigarettes. However, after three months, Mikulic moved Markan to a holiday home at the mouth of the Karasica river into the Drava, then into the suburb Visnjevac, and finally he bought a container in Germany, drove it to the plot belonging to the company Jelavic, which sells construction material, and imprisoned Markan there. For more than six months, without any compensation, for food only, Markan guarded trucks parked at night at the parking lot of the Jelavic company. Finally Mikulic transferred Markan together with the container to the courtyard of his father's house in Tenje, near Osijek where Markan had to take care of 28 pigs, till corn and without any compensation do anything he was ordered to. In the meantime Mikulic forced Markan to sign an authorization to use a savings account in Slavonska Bank, to which Markan received every month 900 Kunas as a supplement for demobilized defenders. Markan was listed as a member of the Croatian Army and, what irony, fought in the 160th brigade, commanded by Dubravko Jezercic!

Perhaps the best illustration of the position in which Markan was at the time is the testimony of Goran Jurkovic, a policeman at the Osijek Police Station. On one occasion he asked Mikulic to help him adapt the cellar in a recently bought house. However, Mikulic told him to go to his parent's house in Tenje where he would find Branko Markan who would help him clean up the cellar. Mikulic emphasized to Jurkovic that he should tell his father that he could let Markan go. "When he arrived to Tenje," states the indictment, "he saw in the courtyard Mikulic's father and Branko Markan next to him. According to his agreement with Mikulic, Jurkovic addressed Mikulic's father and told him that Tomo had said that Markan can go with Jurkovic, after which Tomo Mikulic's father told Markan to go." Markan would remain captive in the container in Mikulic's father's courtyard until April 11, 2000, when, soon after the dismissal of Dubravko Jezercic he summoned courage and reported everything to the Police. When it was noticed that Markan had disappeared, there was a lot of commotion and Mikulic and a friend went looking for him in cars. However, Markan was already at the Police station. Mikulic was arrested the following day, and Jezercic was taken into custody two days later.

Prisoner in Container

Witness J.V. with whom Feral's journalist talked twice, stated that he had visited Markan several times while he was living in captivity in Tenje. He was extremely scared and always had to do something. From time to time there was no electricity in the container, so that Markan lived in very difficult conditions. When J.V. asked him why he did not get a passport and escape abroad, Markan said that he was afraid and that his destiny was to end up in a garbage can. "I would bring him cigarettes and books. He especially liked reading history books, and books about CIA activities. I also visited him once while he was imprisoned in the vacation home at the mouth of the Karasica. He said that he could not go anywhere without Mikulic's permission," said witness J.V., Markan's friend who still keeps Markan's TV set and a few personal possessions in his apartment.

Feral's several days long search for Branko Markan yielded no results. None of his acquaintances knows where he is currently living. Markan has no relatives, his parents are dead, and he has nowhere to move into. The story about a person who was for more than three and a half years, at the brink of 21st century, a literal slave, will, therefore, remain until the beginning of the trial without many important details. A top legal expert consulted by Feral was dumbfounded after hearing that soon in Croatia someone will be tried for slavery, the act punishable under article 175 of the Criminal Law. There is no record that anyone in Croatia, even while it was still a part of Yugoslavia, was ever tried for that crime. Until the beginning of the trial it will remain unknown how something like that was possible at all. Was Markan's fear so great that he concluded that "it [was] better to be a slave than in grave"? Was that fear conditioned by the general fear in Croatia before the change of authorities? Or did Markan realize that in a fight with the Police Chief and his collaborators he stood no chance and that he was in the situation similar to that from a movie: a man who is being blackmailed goes to a police station and complains to the policeman who is the true boss of the local crime gang.

Translated on July 21, 2000