Legija Hiding Under Kostunica's Coat

In his proposal for the extension of the trial against Milorad Ulemek and other defendants charged with the murder of Zoran Djindjic, attorney Popovic mentions a series of statements and documents clearly showing that Djindjic's murderers were very close to Kostunica. Thus, Kostunica sent a letter to one of the persons questioned within the scope of the investigation into Djindjic's assassination in which he tells him to "keep quiet and take it". Kostunica also claimed on several occasions that Djindjic's collaborators knew very well who had killed the former Serbian prime minister

by Vladimir MATIJANIC

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, March 22, 2007

After much speculation, we finally have an official document: a formal request has been made by attorney Srdja Popovic, acting on behalf of Zoran Djindjic's wife Ruzica, that the trial against the suspects charged with the murder of the Serbian prime minister on March 12, 2003, be extended to include testimony from Djindjic's successor in the post of Serbian premier, Vojislav Kostunica. Popovic has included in his request evidence justifying his proposal that Kostunica be asked to testify. Although the public prosecutor Jovan Prijic has refused Popovic's request, it is interesting to the extent it provides political context for the indictment and explains in what way the current Serbian prime minister has profited politically from the murder of his former collaborator and fellow Democratic Party official.

Long Trial

Both Djindjic and Kostunica had once been members of the same party, the Democratic Party (DS), but at the start of the 1990s a group led by Kostunica split off to form the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), of which Kostunica remains the leader.

The people charged with Djindjic's murder are Milorad Ulemek Legija, long-standing commander of the Special Operations Unit (known also as the Red Berets) established by the Serbian security service, and twelve of his men, including Zvezdan Jovanovic charged with the actual killing. The trial, conducted before the Belgrade District Court, has been going on for three years; but although a verdict is expected soon, five of the accused have not been arrested, while others like Ulemek's closest collaborator Dusan Spasojevic were killed during the arrest. Ulemek himself was on the run until May 2, 2004. Soon after that he was sentenced to forty years in prison for the murder of the Serbian politician Ivan Stambolic, and to fifteen years in prison for participating in the murder of high ranking members of the Serbian Renewal Movement.

The trial for Djindjic's murder has proceeded in a somewhat strange atmosphere, especially since the snap elections of March 2004, when Djindjic's DS lost to Kostunica's DSS. The presiding judge Marko Kljajevic resigned unexpectedly half way through the trial, alleging constant pressures applied upon him. The new judge Nata Mesarevic has since conducted the trial efficiently and in the direction of severe sentencing. According to the latest trial related news Ulemek, the most important defendant in the case, has announced that he does not want to attend trial hearings anymore. After he had turned his back to the judges on several occasions, judge Mesarovic dismissed him and excused him from attending future trial hearings.

In order to appreciate Popovic's request, it is important to recall November 2001, when Ulemek's unit blocked access to Belgrade, apparently displeased by having had to participate in the arrest of two Bosnian Serbs, Nenad and Predrag Banovic, who were hiding in Serbia from The Hague Tribunal. The unit had arrested the Banovic brothers, but then rebelled against the authorities. Apparently, they did not know whom they were arresting. The unit demanded personnel changes at the top of the ministry of the interior (MUP) and especially in the secret service. Their demands were largely met, in that the chief of the secret service Goran Petrovic and his deputy Zoran Mijatovic were removed. Popovic insists that these changes removed the most important obstacle to the preparation of Zoran Djindjic's assassination.

Two-pronged Proposal

Popovic's proposal for expansion of the charges goes in two directions. It points on the one hand to the findings of the Serbian government commission entrusted with investigating Djindjic's murder published on August 13, 2003, namely that in November 2001 Ulemek took part in a rebellion directed against the constitutional order and security, and that on the other hand the chief inspector of the Serbian MUP Vladimir Bozovic cancelled in May 2005 the permit for purchase of weapons issued to the Lupus security agency, on the grounds that the agency was employing people who had taken part in the rebellion. Popovic points to the existence of armed rebellion and to the open defiance of the government by Ulemek's Special Operations Unit, arguing that "with this rebellion or, if you like, protest, strike, action or whatever you may wish to call it, Ulemek and his collaborators achieved by illegal means control over the state security service, whose members, according to the indictment, ‘encouraged by this success', continued with their endeavor and killed the prime minister."

Popovic refers to Kostunica for the first time when he requests that the current head of the security service Rade Bulatovic, the longstanding head of the military intelligence service General Aco Tomic, and a former official of the "Krajina" government in Croatia now living in Serbia, Borislav Mikelic, all be questioned. According to Djindjic's widow's attorney, it is necessary to establish whether Ulemek - alone or in Spasojevic's company - in the course of the armed rebellion in November 2001 met with the then military intelligence chief Aco Tomic and with Rade Bulatovic, who at that time was acting as security adviser to Vojislav Kostunica.

Popovic further reveals that Dragan Jocic, a DSS member and interior minister in Kostunica's government, tried to hide the fact that he had talked with Ulemek on the night of his surrender; and that, following this conversation but before Ulemek's appearance in court, Jocic, Bulatovic, Dejan Mihajlov (secretary general to Kostunica's government, and also from Kostunica's DSS) as well as Kostunica himself all stated that Ulemek's testimony would "reveal the full truth". Popovic points out that both Kostunica and Mihajlov, though qualified lawyers, identified Ulemek as "a witness" rather than as "the defendant".

Kostunica And Red Berets

Of special significance is the part in which the attorney draws attention to Kostunica's conduct during the Red Beret rebellion. On that occasion, Kostunica stated that the rebels were not endangering security in the country in any way, and compared their "uprising" with a strike by physicians. Kostunica also tried to justify the meeting of Bulatovic and Tomic with Ulemek and Spasojevic, by arguing that Bulatovic had unintentionally taken part in the conversation, and that the head of the security service "can't choose with whom he should talk or not".

Popovic further recalls that on June 4, 2004, General Tomic, while incarcerated in the Belgrade investigative prison on suspicion of "participating in a criminal conspiracy", received a letter from Kostunica in which the latter "essentially advised him to remain silent and take it". He further recalls that Kostunica's security adviser Bulatovic told [the Belgrade weekly] NIN in the March of 2002 that the changes forced by the Berets' rebellion had been a triumph of patriotism.

There follows a list of other similar statements by Kostunica. Popovic recalls Kostunica's declarations about Djindjic's "interesting and unorthodox connections", and his accusations that the late prime minister was a smuggler. Kostunica complained that Djindjic had endangered the constitutional order by surrendering Milosevic to The Hague. He even practically accused Djindjic's own government of being behind his assassination!? On July 5, 2003, Kostunica told the Belgrade weekly Vreme: "if men from the Red Berets are involved in Zoran Djindjic's murder, then it is the government which should be blamed for it, because they are its officials." It follows from this logic that Djindjic himself was responsible for his own death.

That is not all. The current Serbian prime minister has also repeated allegations made by his government colleague Dejan Mihajlov that Zoran Zivkovic (who replaced Djindjic as prime minister) and Boris Tadic the current Serbian president, both members of Djindjic's Democratic Party, "know well" who killed Djindjic.

Political Story

Srdja Popovic further recalls, in his request for broadening the trial, that three days after Djindjic's assassination Kostunica demanded the formation of a new government that would include members of his own DSS, Seselj's Serb Radical Party and Milosevic's Socialists, on the grounds that they too had been "elected by the people". These facts, together with some evidence of lesser importance, have led Popovic to conclude that "coordinated activity" existed between Ulemek and state bodies headed by Kostunica.

It is undeniable that Kostunica insisted that for him The Hague Tribunal was of minimal importance. Also, the rebellion organized by Ulemek brought forward the same demands that Kostunica himself had stressed. Ulemek said, after all, that he had surrendered because he trusted Kostunica's government, unlike that led by Djindjic's collaborators.

Popovic finally quotes a series of statements in which the defendants referred to their meetings with Kostunica. Thus, for example, one of them, Pejakovic, declared after the meeting with Tomic, Mikelic and Bulatovic: "We won't tell Seselj that we've made contact with Kostunica". Another stated during the rebellion that "we won't give up until Kostunica tells us to". Numerous declarations by Petrovic also speak about the link between Kostunica and the Berets.

Popovic's proposal that, because of all the evidence outlined, Kostunica should be asked to testify in order to clarify "the circumstances of the act under investigation" failed, however, because the prosecutor considered it unnecessary to widen the scope of the trial at this stage. Even without that, however, Popovic's text is a political story of the first importance, revealing the coordination between the current prime minister, his collaborators and the "patriotic" forces aiming at Djindjic's overthrow. For how else can one account for all these "accidental" meetings and "indiscreet" statements, the fact that the current director of Serbian radio and television Aleksandar Tijanic has said that he knows the person who paid 50,000 euros to a special police unit - i.e. not the Berets but another formation - to kill Djindjic? This assertion is in fact identical with what Ulemek's defense lawyer has been saying.

Popovic's proposal, albeit unsuccessful in its formal aim, should at least provoke a political reaction. But since right now negotiations are taking place on the formation of a new government in which Kostunica could once again be prime minister, it is most likely that Popovic's work on this subject will be used by historians in some, distant and better future. That is, if that future ever arrives.

Original headline: "Legija iz Vojinog sinjela"

Translated on August 20, 2007