Letter for friends from exile

Dear friend

I will try to write to you as short as possible, because there are many new information. If something is unclear, please let me know, and I will explain it to you.

Yesterday we came back from our 2-week Croatian holiday to Switzerland. Our daughter is going to the kindergarden again. We are now here till the end of April, when there is again a 2 week holiday.

As I told you, I had a hearing at the court as former employee against Vjesnik because of an unfair dismissal. I hope to think that this trail could be settle down in the following year and very well for me. There is no possibility to I give the job back, because the newspaper Vjesnik is not anymore in possesion by the firm Vjesnik (the firm doesn’t hire journalists anymore), but I hope to get a financial compensation.

When we were in Zagreb, I got another warrant for the court. He had to come to the higher court because the state attorney (under Karamarko’s influence and demand to the court) has sent a claim regarding secrecy breach during the course of investigation.
All this is another way for Karamarko to oppress on me. The court should had dismissed the action regarding the false informations and now this action regarding secrecy breach). The hearing was postponed for the 22. of March, because I could not be in Zagreb 02.03. I had to drive my family to Switzerland.

I have no new information if the higher court set an verdict to the Karamarko against my case (for false accusations….). The district court dismissed Karamarkos action (for procedural reasons) and Karamarko to a higher court.

As you know, our new croatian president is Ivo Josipović. I am very dissapointed with his first moves. Half of the office is taken from the old president Mesic. The worse example is the old-new (same) position of Sa�a Perković. He has still his job as advisor for national security. Josipović explained this as follows: he claimed in public that Perković junior helped him during the presidental campaign to protect his security. Allegedly some ex spies made some files with various rumours and lies about the presidental candidates and sent these files to some newspapers and all the presidental candidate headquaters. But no newspapers published these files and there were no harm. But obviosly Josipović was the only candidate who asked directly Mesić for help and Mesić gave him Perković to solve the problem. The very famous and knwon professor �arko Puhovski claims in an interview that Sa�a Perković infringe the law, because he is not allowed to help one of the candidate, he is not allowed to deal with information. But this is not the only sin of Sa�a Perković. I rember him in the Zagorac case (Zagorec is a war weapon smuggler who was accusated for stealing some diamonds), when Sa�a went to Vienna in 2007 (without the knowledge of the state attorney) and wanted to persuade Zagorec to come back to Croatia. He offered him privileges and no prosecution. Zagorec was enough smart to videotape this meeting together with the austrian police and austrian secret service. All the croatian news portals published this story. But the new international scandal is yet to come.

The German authorities issues an european arrest warrant against Josip Perković. It will be interesting to see how Josipović will react if this warrant comes to Croatia.

In March 2008 I sent a petition to president Mesić, premier Sanader and to the president of parlament committee for national security, Ranko Ostojić, where he gave evidence that the croatian secret service (while Karamarko was its chief) not only iniciated my arrest but wrote on my blog under false names and wrote defamated textes, where they accused I to be responsable for Levar’s death. Nobody answered on my petition, and the Committee didn’t discused about the petition allthough it was its duty.

Dear friend, if you are still interested in my case, I beg you to contact the new president Josipović, the premier Kosor and the president of the parlament committe, Ranko Ostojić. You mentioned an open letter to Karamarko?!

If there will be no improvment for us, we will be forced to stay in Switzerland for another few years. I had received another anonymous calls (with threats as if you hear a knife rasping on metalground ) after he gave an interview to the Radio 101 about Perković and Josipović. There were three such calls, anonymous. About the old threats (on peratovic.blog.hr), I had notified the police in 2008, nobody from the police and the state attorney informed me if there are any news.

In April a freelance journalist Zeljko Peratovic received two death threats posted on his blog. One of the threats was investigated by the police and the State Prosecutor’s Office, but the results were not made public. It is alleged that the other death threat was not investigated.

Best regards,
�eljko from Switzerland

45lines, Zuerich, 01. 03. 2010

PRESS RELEASE

13 may 2009

Croatia

Interior minister fails again to support charges against journalist

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Reporters Without Borders condemns a court decision to continue investigating the charge of �disseminating information likely to upset the population� under article 322/1 of the criminal code that was brought against journalist Zeljko Peratovic in January at the behest at interior minister Tomislav Karamarko. It carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison as well as a possible fine.

Karamarko initiated the case against Peratovic because of allegations he made in two blogs, peratovic.net and peratovic.blog.hr, accusing Karamarko of obstructing the investigation into the death of Milan Levar, a witness under the protection of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), who was killed by a car bomb in Gospic in August 2000.

Karamarko failed to produce any legally sound evidence against Peratovic when he was initially questioned in court. A second hearing was held in the case on 11 May at which the minister was given another chance. He brought several aides and close associates along to testify but he again failed to support the charge.

�It is high time to close this case, which has no foundation,� Reporters Without Borders said. �The charges under article 322/1 are inconsistent and should be dismissed. The very concept of �information likely to upset the population� is based on an obsolete idea of free expression.

�Despite being given another opportunity at this second hearing, the interior minister still clearly lacks the means to support his allegations. His ties to those who were summoned to testify highlight the lack of impartiality in this case. Is the population that is supposedly �upset� by Peratovic�s information limited to these five people, all relatives of the minister or members of the intelligence agency he used to head?�

Reporters Without Borders added: �We urge the judicial authorities in charge of this case to dismiss all the charges against Peratovic.�