Who is Nikola Mladenic and why does he want to go to the Hague?
This is how he introduced himself:"I was born on December 6, 1934 in Kukuljanovo-Rijeka, Croatia. I am a former member of the Yugoslav Peoples Army; I retired in 1992 with the rank of general -major. I am an engineer and during my service with the YPA I've spent 25 years building the infrastructure of Dalmatia, airport Dubrovnik, many roads, bridges, water-works and other objects needed by the population of the coastal Dalmatia and the islands.
In 1991, between May 30 and the end of December, I was the deputy commander of the Military District Split, in charge of civilian duties: technical control, planning, finances, accounting etc. On the basis of these duties I was appointed as the YPA negotiator in the negotiations with the civilian authorities in Split and the surrounding area (Crisis Headquarters Split); the negotiations dealt with the the establishment and oversight of a ceasefire and the peaceful departure of the YPA. I left Split on April 1 1992 and went to Montenegro to regulate the formalities in connection with my discharge from the YPA and retirement. I retired in 1992, immediately after my arrival to Montenegro.
After the passage of a pardon [which applied to the former YPA members] in Croatia, I returned to Croatia on October 24 1992 and was immediately arrested and then sentenced to 12 years in jail; the sentence was later reduced to 10 years. Since than I've been in jail. At the moment I'm serving my sentence in Lepoglava prison."
Calling on human rights, Geneva convention about the protection of civilians during a war and international law articles which treat war time events, and because of the violation of the Croatian constitution and the trial law, Mladenic proposes an arbitration by the Hague tribunal; he states that the sentence does not correspond to its justification, that the justification of the sentence was contradictory, confused, and deficient since it incorrectly reproduced the statements given by the witnesses and facts established during the investigation; in addition to that, he states that the testimonies of eye-witnesses called by the prosecution were unconvincing and contradicting each other and that the main prosecution witness (Croatian Navy Admiral Sveto Letica) in his statement tried to blame Mladenic and avoid responsibility for his own mistakes. Further, Mladenic states that he was blamed for the Yugoslav airforce bombardment of Split, which according to Mladenovic is a brazen lie: "I responsibly claim that during the was Yugoslav airforce never bombarded Split. Further, Yugoslav NAVY ships limited their actions to attacks on the positions of the Croatian military forces and in response to the attacks of the Croatian coastal artillery... I was at the time the president of the commission for the oversight of the ceasefire; the sentence on the other hand claims that, being on this position, I had the authority to make decisions about combat actions."
Since my defense attorneys were under constant pressure, this show trial resulted in an unjust and wrong sentence. I propose that the honorable institution contact competent courts in Croatia and request access to the records from the investigation and the trial in order to verify the assertions made in this letter; I can honorably state that the verdict was passed only on the basis of the purged testimony by Admiral Letica."
Lepoglava prisoner Mladenic suggests that this time the court take into account testimonies of a number of persons (most of whom were YPA officers at the time) who can be reached through the Personnel Department of the Yugoslav Army, located in Belgrade; Mladenic is convinced that these testimonies could overturn the verdict which was reached with use of "assumptions, insinuations and imaginary witnesses". He further claims that the verdict was based on the "collective trial of 33 accused, of which only 2 were in custody during the trial"; therefore, because of the inability of proper defense, "the amount of accusations gives an unrealistic impression of guilt which can result in unobjective, biased view of the actual events." Mladenic illustrates his view of the trial with this characteristic example:
"In order to avoid disturbing the previously determined schedule of the trial, the Court refused to summon two members of the Croatian Army who had been wounded by mines inside the military complex Lora; these soldiers would have told the truth about the circumstances in which they had been wounded and the fact that at the time they were in military uniforms, on a combat mission and within a military object; therefore, at the time they were soldiers on a combat mission and not civilians; this would have made it impossible to portray the military complex Lora as a civilian object and those individuals as civilians, and consequently pass a preconceived verdict for war crimes because of the suffering of civilians..."
Therefore, writes Mladenic, we can conclude: a) that the wounded are sometimes civilians and at other times soldiers, depending on the whim of the Court b) the statement "they were not wounded during regular war-time activities" is unclear. What does constitute regular and what irregular activities during a war? Behind all this, according to Mladenic, is the intention to take the blame for the suffering of these soldiers off the real culprits, since if the soldiers had engaged in "irregular activities" it is obvious that they did so because the command of the Croatian Navy ordered them to engage in those "irregular activities".
In his letter to the Hague Tribunal, Mladenovic also lists other violations of the the law in the trial against him. He says that the actual statements of the witnesses from the main hearing were not entered into the record of the trial; instead it was simply entered that "the witness repeated the testimony given during the investigation"; furthermore, the verdict claims that the testimonies of all 38 witnesses were read during the main hearing, which is a lie, since only three testimonies, given during the investigation, were read and none of those witnesses had been summoned to appear at the hearing. Mladenic emphasizes that witness Sveto Letica was not questioned about the crucial details during the main hearing although the verdict wrongly claims that this was the case (instead Mr. Letica's statement given during the investigation was included in the verdict). During confrontation, writes Mladenic, witness Letica was very unconvincing and "in order to avoid answering my questions, he left the hearing on his own accord and prevented me, with the assistance of the Court which failed to stop him, from asking important questions. At the same time I was not given a permission to point out the inconsistencies in the statements given by witnesses Letica and Puljic (Croatian negotiator); therefore the right to defend myself was denied, both to myself and my attorney, in the crucial moments of the trial."
Mladenic proceeds to inform the Hague Tribunal that on January 1994 he was released from the detention and then, without a new arrest warrant, taken to the prison in Lepoglava and two days later taken to be exchanged for captured Croatian soldiers; he refused to be exchanged. Then he draws the attention of the Court to a very telling detail (according to him). Namely, during the visit of the Hague prosecutor Richard Goldstone to Croatia, then president of the Croatian Supreme Court stated that "Croatia [was] leading a defensive war and that her defenders [could not have committed] war crimes." Mladenic wonders whether this was a certain "permit" to commit war crimes for the privileged individuals.
Former general of the former YPA, Nikola Mladenic, now a prisoner in the prison in Lepoglava, has used all the possibilities to appeal his verdict. On June 13, 1995, he went to the Constitutional Court of Croatia but until today he hasn't received a reply although all "legal and reasonable deadlines have passed." All the pardons and the clemency law managed to miss him. Still he is obviously convinced that he is right and does not ask for clemency , but for justice, demonstrating with this self-extradition to the Hague that, after all, he expects to find more justice in the International Tribunal for war crimes than in the County Court in Split or in the Supreme Court of Croatia in Zagreb.
European Union Mission has data about these pressures and maltreatment; The mission twice received the delegations of the women from those families. The Court implies that I could have prevented some events, but fails to mention that others, from the other side were in the position to prevent, or at least alleviate such events. Do war crimes have a bright and a dark side? Are the actions of some individuals excusable while those of others aren't?
If the Court wanted to objectively accept the testimonies and my return to Croatia it wouldn't have made such a verdict. The fact that I returned to Croatia demonstrates that I did not feel guilty, let alone thought of myself as a criminal. The implication that I consciously contributed to the idea of Greater Serbia is a political imputation which pushes this trial at the edge of being a political witch-hunt (in some ways it already is a political trial). I believe that the above stated facts are sufficient to point out the injustice inflicted on me and others and to demonstrate the dependence and biased nature of the Courts.