Kroatischer Journalist Zeljko Peratovic von Innenminister verklagt
Der kroatische Journalist Zeljko Peratovic, bekannt für seine Berichte über Kriegsverbrechen im ehemaligen Jugoslawien während der 1990er Jahre, ist vom kroatischen Innenminister Tomislav Karamarko angeklagt worden. Er wird beschuldigt, Informationen veröffentlicht zu haben, die “zu Aufregung in der Bevölkerung” führen könnte, so die Anklage, die sich nach Artikel 322/1 KZA des Strafgesetzes richtet und maximal ein Jahr Gefängnis sowie eine mögliche Geldstrafe beinhaltet.
Peratovic, einer der letzten, die Levar lebend gesehen hatten, wurde als Zeuge in Ermittlungen um den Anschlag befragt. Der Journalist vermutet eine bestimmte Absicht hinter Karamarkos Anklage gegen ihn: “das Gericht könnte auch, statt einer Geldstrafe, ein Verbot für mich in der Verbreitung von Informationen durchsetzen. Das würde verhindern, dass ich jede Art von Journalistischer Tätigkeit ausüben könnte, sei es auf meinem Blog oder in anderen Medien.” Damit sei auch seinem Bemühen, den Fall Milan Levar aufzuklären, ein Ende gesetzt.
Reporter ohne Grenzen verurteilt die Anklage gegen Peratovic. “Es scheint, als ob das Einmischen der Medien in Kriegsverbrecherprozesse nicht willkommen ist zu einer Zeit, in der Kroatien um den Beitritt in die Europäische Union bemüht ist, so Rubina Möhring.”Der Innenminister sollte engagiert sein, die Untersuchungen um den Mord an einem geschützten Zeugen zu unterstützen statt diejenigen zu attackieren, die sich weigern, Kriegsverbrechen zu vergessen und unbestraft zu lassen”, führt sie fort.
Die Bestrafung unter Artikel 322/1 sei lächerlich und nicht akzeptabel, so die Organisation: “Das Verbrechen, Informationen zu verbreiten, die die Öffentlichkeit aufregen könnten, zeugt von einer obsoleten Ansicht über freie Meinungsäußerung, die völlig inkompatibel ist mit den demokratischen Standards der EU.”Diesen muss sich Kroatien aber anpassen, wenn es der EU beitreten will.”
“Wenn die Anklage gegen Peratovic länger andauert werden wir dafür sorgen, dass jede Anhörung vor Gericht bei offenen Türen stattfindet,” so die Organisation.
Zeljko Peratovic, der 2008 Todesdrohungen bekommen hatte, wurde schon 2007 verhaftet,unter anderem weil er Staatsgeheimnisse über Kriegsverbrechen in den 1990ern auf seinem Blog veröffenlicht hatte. Er arbeitete für verschiedene Zeitungen, zuletzt für “Vjesnik“. 2003 bekam er von Reporter ohne Grenzen Österreich den Press Freedom Award.
-Željko, what kind of intelligence underground are you talking about? When you write all sorts of nonsense and misinformation, then it is called “professional” journalism. When someone is critical and asks you for anything concerning your work as a journalist, then you say how that is exclusively to the order and in the production of “the intelligence underground”. Didn’t Franjo Turek use the same terminology? Didn’t he name certain Croatian journalists “intelligence underground”? It seems that you have yet another point of reference.
As far as my assertion (indicating you and (let me use your jargon) Daddy Manolić operating together) is concerned, it seems you haven’t overworked yourself to deny that. The fact is you can’t deny it because one just has to read your texts and comments.
Now that you have forced me to speak, I will point to one more specualtion that is being talked about in Gospić and Rijeka. The story says that, at some time, you used to inform some unsavory characters on late Levar’s movement (the same Levar you feel so protective about now and about whom you have already written « War and peace » on your Internet pages). Naturally, you will say again that it is a classic example of « intelligence undergorund » set-up (30/1/2007 ; 21:20)
- for Krešo Bilan: If you agree with “Željko’s information”, then why haven’t you brought charges especially since, as you have indicated yourself, the mechanisms of the rule of law don’t function ? As far as my anonymity is concerned, it is my discretional right. If writers can publish books using false names and pen names, then we can contribute our comments in the same way. 31/1/2007, (14:17)
… “aleluja” in comments on post “Spies rushed on to blog” on 45 lines
I have been repeatedly warning the public and authorities that the SOA director Tomislav Karamarko was obstructing Milan Levar’s murder investigation. Then, in order to turn attention from the topic, the “Agency” accused me of “snitching” Levar to “unsavory characters”. What is it: protection of national interests or protection of killers?!
-Peratović, or I should call you AGENT “PUNIŠA” (the spy name Turek gave you), how much does your integrity cost? Is it HRK1, 000 a month plus bonus per every “quality” information? Still, the price is irrelevant- what matters is integrity.
Tell me, will you be able to look ĐURĐA ADLEŠIĆ square in the eye since you told Turek that her lover was SIS member Josip Trogrlić. Moreover, you said that she was so much in love with him that she told him the most confidential information she knew as (then) the chief of the parliamentary Board for national security?
Greetings to aleluja, he is on a good track, let him just keep digging on hypocrite Željko Peratović!
Hm, you should remember what Mesić-Karamarko’s “Nacional” published after my arrest:
BLOGGER PUNIŠA BROUGHT IN FOR QUESTIONING
Željko Peratović started and ended his journalist’s career in Vjesnik. He also wrote for a number of newspapers, including Nacional where he worked shortly. Some secret services considered him their associate while his code name in POA records was ‘Puniša’
Who briefed “Nacional” on how to discredit me? Was it the Agency or Berislav Jelinić, a journalist, who came across this information while surfing the Internet and believed it to be true although it came from “an anonymous commentator?
Those were the attempts to discredit me followed by “lujka“’s provocative comment:
@45.- here is the precise information. Josip Buljević has been touring South America for 2 weeks now. He spent most of the time in the Croatian Embassy in Buenos Aires where the scandal, similar to the one in Portugal, broke. The Embassy’s employees have reported how Buljević introduced the reign of terror, verbally abused them, and even suggested the polygraph testing for the ambassador’s bodyguard. At the same time, he was frequently seen dining with Rojnica’s closest relatives and friends!
- for comment: read H.L. from the first half of the last year (Perković is on the front cover). The article is under the headline “I didn’t order immigrants’ killings”, signed by Tomislav Držić. The attempt was to grant amnesty to-free Perković from any responsibility for mass killings of Croats that took place abroad. Those killings were planned and helped by the State security service which was, for many years, run by the above mentioned Josip Perković.
This article is interesting for the reason that it was signed by Tomislav Držić who was Perković’s associate in Zagreb.. Željko has also mentioned Maks Manfreda, UDBA member, who testified in the court when Sindičić was tried for murdering Bruno Bušić. However, he didn’t mention professor of TIPSS and Marxism, a former police officer, who used to fuss about Bruno and send reports on him to the Split UDBA. What a coincidence! He also writes for H.L. that ran the article with the reconstruction of associates’ net from the “professional’s” (J.P.’s) memory. Do you know whose name was deleted from that associates’ list in H.L.? The name of Ante Ivković from “Vjesnik”, Marijačić’s journalist’s mentor and protector, who was also SDS and KOS associate.
As far as Ivan Bandić is concerned, you should look into who is behind him, who gave him the permission for an interview in Globus one year ago (here I don’t refer to J.P.). Those people, more than anyone, are against any kind of lustration.
To sum up, they wanted to discredit me by “ingratiating themselves with me” and denouncing colleagues from “Hrvatski list”, about whom, except Tomislav Jelić, I don’t have some positive opinion.
With regards to these provocative acts, I hove come into possession of some other evidence which I will not disclose for the time being.
As far as “Antimon”, reported by CNN to be one of “Agency’s” nicks, is concerned, I couldn’t find his posts. However, I presume that we are probably talking about hate speech aimed at Bosniaks (mentioning terms such as “balija” and “bastards”, disparaging Karamarko’s wife Enisa’s family and insulting Željko Malnar, co-founder of Karamarko’s company “Soboli” etc.), in comments on post “Bosniaks’ quota in SOA”. I deleted those comments after being warned by Nemanja alias Kapetan Kuka that, in the name of “freedom of speech”, I mustn’t allow “hate speech” …
I think that Ostojić’s parliamentary board and its Council will be rather busy. Here’s to them! If these posts turn out to be, and they can be checked by tracing logs, “Agency’s” posts, then those are the offences for which SOA chief, Tomislav Karamarko, as well as the general state attorney Mladen Bajić, who allegedly approved of such “activities”, will have to be accountable for.
They will not pass Euro-Atlantic integrations’ “lustration” and that is why I am the obstacle – or State enemy no. 1 – in “approaching” the integrations.
Prosecution authorities rejected suit; Karamarko files private suit against journalists
Since the County State Attorney’s office in Zagreb rejected Tomislav Karamarko’s suit against Željko Peratović, a journalist and blogger, the Minister decided to deal with it on his own. Therefore, his lawyer Veljko Miljević filed a suit against Peratović for spreading disturbing rumours.
A couple of days ago, Karamarko was interviewed for Večernji list. When talking about offensive articles appearing on the Internet and whether the police should be at disposal to people who feel hurt or slandered by the contents of that media, Karamarko said that the Internet is legally a gray area.
He also added that there were all sorts of things written about him on the Internet and pointed out that he was dealing with the problem in a way that he filed suits against two bloggers.
One of them is Peratović who received the formal decision of the Municipal Criminal Court in Zagreb yesterday. It said that he would be under investigation for spreading disturbing rumours. Peratović could not say which of his texts (and he published a series of articles on POA and its recent director) are the main cause for the suit since that data was not mentioned in the formal decision about conducting the investigation.
Karamarko also accused Peratović of revealing a state secret and the State Attorney’s office acted according to the accusation. Peratović was then arrested, his apartment was raided and his computers were seized. Still, there are no legal proceedings against him nor have they given up prosecuting him. They rejected the suit for spreading disturbing rumours since, in their view, a larger number of people did not get upset by Peratović’s blog, without which there is no offence.
Is Bešker being targeted by the Minister?
Tomislav Karamarko, the interior minister, is allegedly suing Jutarnji list columnist Inoslav Bešker. According to Bešker, he received a note which said that the Minister had the intention to sue him because of the article in which he criticized secret services when POA’s chief was Karamarko. The main cause for that was the information that Radovan Karadžić, while still at large, was moving around Dalmatia.
Bešker objected secret services the fact that instead of catching a fugitive they were dealing with journalists.
Croatian secret services have one more additional argument when claiming that they did not know where Ante Gotovina was when he was searched for by the Hague court and when that was the reason why the European Union was blocking negotiations with Croatia. Now, I can say it openly: we did not even know that Radovan Karadžić was spending his time in Čiovo and you can trust us when we say that we would want to catch him!
Who knows whether one should be completely confident of that? Croatian and Serbian leaders were involved in trading all sorts of things in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Radovan Karadžić, together with Ivica Rajić, could have been protected by someone from the Croatian secret services while he was soaking himself in the Croatian Adriatic Sea.
The fact that Radovan Karadžić was entering and leaving Croatia whenever he wanted, that he was preparing to go back to Split where he could witness Sanader’s famous rally to save Mirko Norac or some of the Pope’s visits to Dalmatia, is evidence of what sorts of secret services, paid from our taxes, we have.
It is scary if they did know that and even worse if they were entirely unaware of that fact. At that time they were rather busy and had their priorities such as following, prosecuting, intimidating and harassing journalists. Detention of Željko Peratović, confiscation of his work tools, obstruction of employment opportunities; blackmailing Helena Puljiz; breathing down Drago Hedl’s neck and intimidating him with the data collected by wiretapping Feral; stalking Pavelić, Đikić, Malić, Čičak and Butković -stalking them but not Karadžić.
It has been 53 days that somebody beat up and tried to kill journalist Duško Miljuš. It is futile to expect those agencies to help the police not to find a person who did that to Duško Miljuš, but the person who ordered that – the person who is evidently involved in subversive activities against the constitutional order in Croatia. Similarly, we have been waiting for 2884 days for them to say, not who murdered the Hague witness Milan Levar ( because they know that but the evidence do not find their way to the court), but again, who ordered it. Those would be the pieces of information for which they are paid. Instead of that, those agencies prosecute the information for which you pay.
Legal lack of rights more dangerous than the illegal one
The situation is much more dangerous than I anticipated: some entirely impermissible actions in Croatia are not illegal but completely legal.
Violation of human and professional rights caused by the breach of law is definitely dangerous. However, the system has in-built mechanisms that are used to resist that and prosecute perpetrators. Violation of human and professional rights that is in accordance with the law is much more dangerous since it is an indicator that the system has in-built mechanisms that are favourable to such behaviour. It is similar to Stalin’s Soviet Union which had one of the most liberal constitutions in the world but, according to it, it was not illegal to put people, mostly communists, into concentration camps nor was it against the law to lock people up, primarily smarter ones, in mental hospitals.
Peratović case: Council for Civil Supervision of Security –Intelligence agencies held the opinion that, pursuant to Article 113 of the Act on Security and Intelligence system of the Republic of Croatia, it is entirely legal to detain and harass a citizen who is in this case a journalist. It is also legal to seize his work tools, such as computers with saved archives, and keep them for a longer period, suspect him of revealing state and military secrets without any foundation, and, in accordance with the above mentioned, it is utterly unfounded to doubt that his basic human and professional rights were violated by the above described procedures. Consequently, working independently and keeping your own archive and using it in Croatia is not regarded as basic human and professional rights if civil servants do not like what you do or how you do it.
Violation of human and professional rights that is in accordance with the law is very dangerous since it is an indicator that the system has in-built mechanisms that are favourable to such a behaviour
The matter in case is the petition of Željko Peratović, an investigative journalist, which he submitted to the Council for Civil Supervision of Security –Intelligence agencies and the parliamentary Board for Internal Politics and National Security. In the petition, he asked for the protection of his human and professional rights. However, the petition, as we have seen, was rejected.
As Freedom House reported, Peratović’s detention, together with breaking into Gordan Malić’s apartment and death threats directed at Robert Valdec, was mentioned as the reason why Croatia was placed at the 78th place of the world chart of media freedom. It should be also mentioned that the Croatian journalists’ association supported its member’s petition. The HND say that from the alleged SOA document which was released follows that the SOA was incriminating Peratović for his writing.
Željko Peratović was professionally investigating the murder of Milan Levar, a witness to war crimes, and the obstruction of the investigation of Levar’s murderers for which he suspected the members of security-intelligence system.
Moreover, the non-denied analysis conducted by the SOA which dealt with Peratović’s work was released and it confirmed that the SOA “was decreasing damage” by infiltrating into the media space, making comments on blogs and other Internet pages.
Naturally, it would not be for the first time that some state secret service was spreading (mis)information – it is also happening in Italy where the military espionage had a special department whose purpose was to misinform and slander – but that certainly is not the purpose for which citizens finance the service. In a decent world, it would be a shame and not the reason for earning salary and deserving a medal.
Pukanić case: The police, its internal control and one parliamentary board found that there was nothing illegal in preventing a citizen from informing journalists about something by using force, including handcuffs. The same citizen was then taken to a psychiatric hospital, where she does not belong in terms of the place of residence. The usual doctor’s procedure or any medical basis (as it was established by the follow-up specialist check-up) were lacking. The citizen was kept there under coercion for days.
This is naturally the case of Mirjana Pukanić.
The question is what her destiny would be like if the Croatian Helsinki Committee, a non-government organization, did not get involved. Unlike it, state authorities, as we have heard, were acting in accordance with the law.
The freedom of media is naturally the main goal of those legal but impermissible procedures but it is not the main victim. What is more endangered is civil freedom itself. If we are to believe the authorities that say that the law in Croatia enables and justifies pressures and threats to freedom that Željko Peratović and Mirjana Pukanić suffered – then it means that any of you, ladies and gentlemen, who voted for those who passed such laws and who pay taxes in order to finance all of that, can legally find himself in the same situation.
Karamarko sues journalist Peratović for accusations of protecting his friend’s killers
Tomislav Karamarko, the Croatian Minister of Internal Affairs, filed a suit against two independent Internet journalists- Željko Peratović and Domagoj Margetić. According to Veljko Miljević, Karamarko’s lawyer, the suit was filed for spreading disturbing and false contents.
Karamarko filed his first suit at the Municipal Criminal Court in June when he was the head of the Security Intelligence Agency. Yet, the General Attorney’s Office considered that at that moment there were no grounds for criminal prosecution. At the beginning of December, his lawyer made an addition to the suit and put everything into motion once again. Miljević explains that he did not want to file a private suit against Peratović (authorities will prosecute him, author’s comment) because it is not only Karamarko whose dignity has been damaged but people close to him as well since he fills the post of minister at the moment.
“Karamarko, protector of this and that”
When asked to name at least two examples explaining why Karamarko decided to insist upon the suit, despite the atmosphere caused by the police prosecution of a Facebooker, Miljević says:
”As a man, Karamarko feels most hurt by Peratović claiming that he has covered up Milan Levar’s murderer. He says that his daughter asked him one day what murderers he was protecting», says Miljević. «Secondly, there are all sorts of articles on his blog – ‘Stjepan Mesić, the President of the Republic, this’, ‘State General Attorney Mladen Bajić that’, ‘the head of SOA, Tomislav Karamarko, protector of this and that’», enumerates Miljević.
He also added that it was not only the question of the Internet but he repeated the same on television, radio and printed media. Moreover, he claimed that Karamarko would not insist on the suit if the articles were not on the Internet for a longer period of time.
For heaven’s sake, who killed Milan Levar?
Milan Levar was Peratović’s friend and the witness to war crimes in Gospić. He was also involved in the investigation regarding “Medački džep ‘93″, about which he was supposed to testify in The Hague. Levar claimed that Croatian secret service agencies had the right data and evidence of crimes. Levar pointed to general Mirko Norac and Tihomir Orešković, the secretary of the Lika Crisis Headquarters, as the chief suspects.
Domagoj Margetić and Karamarko’s lawyer Veljko Miljević
They were convicted but lead an easy life in prison – every now and then, Orešković’s serve time is suspended, while Norac managed to meet the love of his life, conceive a child and get married at the same time while serving a sentence for the killings of Serbs. Following Levar’s murder in 2000, media reported how Josip Manolić, who coordinated the work of Croatian secret service agencies at the time of those unfortunate events in Gospić, when asked to say who killed Levar, answered:
“Well, those he named war criminals! At least, that is clear!”
Thus, a former secret agent indirectly pointed to this duo. It is important to mention that Karamarko is not the only (now former, author’s comment) head of the intelligence agency that Peratović has been in conflict with since his friend was murdered.
Secret service raided “paranoid” Peratović’s apartment
Murderers have remained unknown until today. For years, Peratović has been unable to find a job in «proper» media because, in journalists’ circles, he is perceived as a paranoiac obsessed by secret services. He was not present in the media until he was arrested for revealing a military secret on the blog. His entire documentation and all computers in the apartment were seized.
The search was requested on the basis of notes from the Security Intelligence Agency (SOA) official letter, the office of the director Tomislav Karamarko from 17 September 2007. The search warrant, as said in the statement of reasons, was issued at the request of the Zagreb Police Department dated 16 October this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs notes from 7 February, computer excerpts from Peratović’s blog.
