On Tuesday 16 December in the center of Zagreb at approximately 9 pm, Ivan Ćaleta, a co-owner of Nova TV, the first private television station with a national concession in Croatia, was injured after he was shot. He is the latest victim in the irrational war for power over the secret partnership in the media group that controls over 90% of the media in Croatia in various ways. Investigators indirectly confirmed for Nacional that based on the reconstruction of the assault, they believe it to be an attack on freedom of the press.

It is indicative that Ćaleta was attacked after the owner of Nova TV negotiated its sale to the media giant Rupert Murdoch Investigative circles confirmed that the attack on Ivan Ćaleta is not believed to be an attack against freedom of the press Vinko Grubišić, one of the actors in the Grupo affair, was meant to be in court at the time of the attack on Ćaleta to explain the circumstances in which Jadran Film shares were transferred to his under-aged son Ćaleta began his conflict with partners from the Grupo cartel at the end of 2002 when his company began buying shares in Nova TVĆaleta was walking towards his Mercedes which was parked on Bauerova Street. Not far from the crossing with Lopašićeva, a man approximately 180 cm tall in dark clothing, with a hat and a scarf covering his face, approached Ćaleta and fired six shots at him from an unidentified model and caliber pistol. Three shots injured both his shins and the back side of the left knee cap. The attacker then disappeared and Ćaleta drove himself to Dubrava hospital. Doctors concluded that he had minor injuries.

After one hour, the doctor on duty that admitted Ćaleta informed the police, who concluded that the shooter was a professional assassinator. The OESS mission in Croatia became worried. Ivica Blažičko, the Executive President at Nova TV, estimated that this was a warning.

Completely unfounded judgments emerged in the public. Branko Vukšić, the programming director at Nova TV, announced that this was the most brutal attack on the freedom of the press. Commentators at Jutarnji List believe the claims on the attacks on the freedom of the press is an attempt to cover up the motive of the incident in order to protect his boss Ninoslav Pavić, who could be seen in the investigation as a person with a motive to send Ćaleta a cruel message. The Croatian Press Society (HND) sought maximum efforts from the police in throwing light on one more case that symbolizes an attack on the media. If the police really put their best efforts into the case, they could disappoint HND because they will uncover that Ćaleta is only the latest victim of a violent attack over the past several months; all victims received a similar warning from the protagonist media cartel Grupo who also has ownership rights over Nova TV and the remaining written and electronic media within the secret, criminal cartel.

On 1 March, the Mercedes ML Jeep belonging to Ninoslav Pavić, the co-owner of Europa Press Holding, the largest newspaper house in Croatia, was blown up. The bomb under Pavić’s automobile was also placed by a professional and was activated at 4 am, while Pavić was sleeping; the jeep was parked in front of his house. Understandable yet hypocritical, Pavić’s reporters made a victim out of their boss for the fight for the freedom of the press.

On 30 October at 6 pm, Zdravko Jurak was beaten. Two unidentified attackers caused minor injuries in front of his house on Vinograda Street. The apparent reason was that Jurak told the police about his dirty work with Pavić and Kutle. On 20 November, two masked attackers beat Denis Kuljiš in front of his apartment on Starčevićeva Square in Zagreb. Jurak was Pavić’s former partner and Kuljiš was Pavić’s hired worker, once a successful editor that, at the end of the 1990’s as Miroslav Kutle’s employee, a privileged HDZ tycoon, completed his dirty work against the media that were not controlled by Grupo. Thanks to HDZ’s benevolence, in the 1990’s Kutle destroyed over ten companies, carried out numerous criminal operations, and worked together with Pavić in a secret media partnership in order to control important media in Croatia. In the vortex of the secret media partnership, they cooperated with Juraj Hrvačić for many years; he was Kutle’s employee responsible for radio, while at the same time responsible for handing over the concession for Obiteljski and Narodni radio, and several months previously for the city television station in Zagreb. Several days before the attempted assassination on Ćaleta, an anti-mine bomb was placed in front of Hrvačić’s house. Hrvačić accidentally discovered the mine and informed the police who deactivated the bomb. Since then, Hrvačić has several retired members of SIS at his side and “Sokol Marić” has placed modern security equipment in his home so that no one can go unnoticed.

Ćaleta and the other media “victims” know each other well. There are numerous unsolved conflicts over ownership in various Croatian media, including Nova TV, where Ćaleta recently became the majority owner. These conflicts most likely escalate to violence after the “victim” attempts to ignore the real owner of the media that he nominally manages, hidden behind a secret partnership agreement. It could be indicative to police investigators that Ćaleta was attacked when, as the majority owner, he negotiated the sale of Nova TV with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch and his company, News Corporation, did not manage to receive the tender several months ago for the second private television concession in Croatia and he apparently now wants to purchase Nova TV. Murdoch is apparently prepared to pay €20-25 million, which is enough to disturb everyone who is, or believes themselves to be, co-owners of Nova TV, especially when they think that Ćaleta will take away most of the fortune.

The real owners of Nova TV were discovered in 2000 by the Republika newspaper. On 4 December 2000, in its first edition, Republika published documents that prove that Pavić, Kutle, Ivić Pašalić and Vinko Grubišić were joined in the secret partnership agreement in the Grupo cartel in order to manipulate public opinions and create political incidents in Croatia. In order to be successful, they decided to control all important media in Croatia, including Nova TV. That was also meant to allow enormous profits from the sale of newspapers and marketing.

The beginning of the secret association for the control of the media in Croatia began in 1991 when Grubišić, the then Deputy Information Minister, together with Anto Barišić, a former member of the Yugoslavian secret police that was Tuđman’s advisor for a short period, created a model of a so-called media action in which the entire media space should be placed under the control of HDZ “headquarters”. The idea was rejected because there was already influential private media in Croatia, which could not be placed under the control of HDZ. Barišić was soon removed from Tuđman’s vicinity, mainly because of his conspiracy theories against Croatia which were judged as being nebulous, and partly because religious representatives were not pleased with the political ascent of the former member of the secret police that once spied on priests. Grubišić returned to OTV from the government, where he acted like an independent media employee despite the fact that he was a production student and former party activist with good family relations in HDZ. He quickly became close with Kutle, and Kutle financed the privatization of OTV in 1993 becoming its rightful owner, even though it was nominally owned by Grubišić, Romano Bolković, and Frane Boban.

The following year, 1994, the then co-owners of EPH, Pavić and Jurak, together with Kutle, founded the International Press Corporation (MNK) in order to control all printed press in Croatia. That plan was postponed due to the business separation between Pavić and Jurak. Jurak got on Pavić’s nerves because he did not understand newspaper editing and he was not a adventurous. Jurak is not a conflicting individual, and because he knew many of the respected HDZ officials, he was uncomfortable because of the then critical articles that were published in Globus on HDZ. That is why he wanted to leave the partnership with Pavić, which conflicted with the HDZ’s desire to control all media. Pavić stated that he was not happy about the separation from Jurak, but that he paid him off and took over control of EPH. This was carried out by Globus Holdings on 12 April 1996, Kutle’s mother company that managed all companies that Kutle suspiciously gained during HDZ’s reign. In the protocol between Jurak and Globus Holdings, which defined what Jurak would receive if he would give his share of MNK over to Kutle’s company, in the first Article it stands: “The signing parties agree that Zdravko Jurak is the formal owner of 50% of shares in EPH Zagreb, while the actual owner of the mentioned shares is Globus Holding.” Jurak was paid 500,000 DEM cash and property and machinery in MNK was transferred over to Kutle’s company. In Article 4 it was agreed that before the transformation of EPH into a stock society, taking into regard the actual shares in EPH, Kutle’s company would take over 50% of EPH shares. In HDZ’s name, Kutle purchased half of the company that issued the weekly Globus as well as several other relatively successful newspapers. From Kutle’s entrance in EPH, Pavić was no longer an independent newspaper publisher; he became a co-owner of the media that was careful not to threaten the right radical HDZ wing led by Ivić Pašalić, Kutle’s political sponsor and Tuđman’s powerful internal political advisor who saw himself as Tuđman’s natural predecessor. He soon reanimated Grubišić’s idea on creating a media network controlled by a central power and on 17 September 1997, Pavić, Kutle, Grubišić and Pašalić signed an Agreement on market entrance, which was a list of inventory of all their well known and hidden ownership shares in Croatian media. That agreement was signed in the same font and maybe even using the same computer as the secret partnership agreement where the partners from the Grupo affair created a plan to steal shares from Dubrovačka Bank, which caused the largest scandal in HDZ and caused it to start losing its power in 2000.

Pavić, Kutle, Pašalić and Grubišić were aware that their plan, based on illegal monopolistic organization, needed to be hidden from the public and authorized government bodies. That is why they wrote their secret plan for controlling the press in code, so its content would not be understood even if the agreement made its way into the public. On 4 December 2000, Republika published who the code clerk for the agreement was, as well as numerous other partnership agreements where it was made clear who the persons were that held shares in the media for the name and account of the Grupo cartel.

That is how it was discovered that Pavić signed that agreement under the pseudo name Zdravko Tonković, Kutle as Tonči Horvatić, Grubišić as Franjo Zdravković and Pašalić as Hrvoje Franjić. Because Pašalić was Franjo Tuđman’s influential internal politics advisor, his name was not written but it was mentioned that the person was well known by all signers of the agreement. That agreement was in the safe at the attorney’s office of Marijan Hanžeković in Zagreb. Due to a triple lock on the door, no partner had access to the documents. The signers precisely developed how and which media ownership shares they would transfer under Grupo’s wing, in the ownership of all four members. This related to a range of local and regional radio and television stations, EPH issues, and Jadran Film production capacity. The partners defined that their controlled power and influence would be used to get the Oscar. The code name Oscar, according to the code clerk, related to the national television tender that was later received by Nova TV, under the ownership of Miroslav Lilić and Tomislav Marčinko and several other companies. The companies, as well as Lilić and Marčinko, were the ownership front for the Grupo quartet.

At the end of the 1990’s, Nacional regularly wrote about the injustice and political misuse that the secret partners used to gain control over a range of media. That is how it was discovered that Kutle illegally withdrew funds from the company and financed the takeover of most media, as well as Nova TV. Due to the discovery of that scandal, Nacional reporters were secretly followed and eavesdropped, and brought in to the police for informative discussions. The media, under the control of the secret Grupo quartet, already then served to control the damages done in HDZ’s regime. After uncovering the Dubrovačka Bank affair, Jutarnji List published a made up interview with Mark Marčinko, the director at Glumina Bank, who admitted that he was the secret fifth partner, and not Pašalić, in the Dubrovačka Bank affair.

Despite all this, HDZ’s rating constantly fell. Attempting to save at least a portion of the lost reputation, one of HDZ’s fractions opposed the radicalism behind Pašalić’s decision to detain Kutle, who was a symbol of the regime’s corruption in the public. Kutle dealt with the accusations on illegal operations at Tisak, a monopolistic company for the distribution of media that was suspiciously taken over and led to near bankruptcy even though it had a daily income of several million DEM. Despite Kutle’s attempts, HDZ lost during the elections. While his partner Kutle was in prison, Pavić handed out graphic prints for the contribution to democratization with Premier Račan and artist Ed Murtić in the luxurios “Pavilijon” restaurant.

After the transfer from HDZ, many began to research the background of the ownership relations in Croatian media. After a police investigation that lasted several months, along with published documents on the monstrous media monopoly in Republika, at the beginning of December 2000, Ninoslav Pavić and Vinko Grubišić were detain for a short period. The police suspected that along with Kutle and the “unknown” individual, Ivić Pašalić, they joined together in a criminal operation for the illegal control of the press. Račan’s government met the justice blockade for the first time. Pavić and Grubišić were immediately released from prison, and the corrupted justice officials stated that their activities were not illegal. If the qualification of their criminal organization could still be discussed, several thousand documents on their activities were offered from a range of possibilities for their illegal withdrawal of funds and alienation of property from various companies.

Because of constant political pressure and orchestrated attacks on the media under the control of the Grupo quartet, this never occurred. Račan calculated and tried to call the media situation a media war, suggesting that all members of the media were involved in the affair for their personal good.

Račan wrongly estimated that the illegal secret partners, along with numerous HDZ officials that Kutle corrupted with payments from his “treasury”, would allow him to have constant power in Croatia. By saving Pavić from criminal persecution, Račan received a faithful ally in the media. Compared to that, Pavić’s media created a myth on the unbribable investigative judge Radovan Ortynski, who participated in persecuting the apparent Zagreb mafia before being removed from duties in 2000. With Račan in Parliament, Ortynski was named the main District Attorney, and he kept damaging documents related to Pavić, Pašalić and Grubišić hidden.

Because of this discovery by Republika and Nacional’s articles on the secret Grupo quartet, their mutual trust was permanently damaged. While Pašalić hid under the immunity of a Parliamentary representative and Pavić behind his new friendship with Račan, Grubišić enjoyed the companies that paid his godfather Kutle, while only Kutle sat in prison. His secret partners resold most of their mutual property.

Kutle felt that he was deceived, but did not allow his research to be publicly proved because he would then have to admit that the ownership of the most influential media cannot be reconstructed from the shareholder’s records at the Commercial Courts but through a network of underground partnership agreements that Kutle signed with Pavić, Pašalić and Grubišić.

When Kutle was finally allowed to defend his innocence after sixteen months in prison, in the spring of 2001, someone shot at his car while he was at a meeting at café “Lisinski”, which he reported to the police. Maybe it was a message from his secret partners as to what would happen if he continues his partnership investigation. Soon after, Branka Bolković was badly beaten, the then wife of Roman Bolković, one of the co-owners of Kutle’s OTV, a local television station. She was one of the crown witnesses of the secret partnership of the Grupo quartet, and the two assaulters told her that they were beating her so she would see what it felt like to be in prison.

The bullet in Kutle’s car was just the beginning of a violent retribution of the secret partners over the property and profit brought in by their mutual media, which culminated in last week’s warning shots directed at Ivan Ćaleta.

At the end of 2002, Ćaleta reactivated the Grupo affair, arguing on Nova TV with the secret partnership owners from the Grupo clan, whose interest it was to protect Vinko Grubišić, the nominal majority owner of OTV and Jadran Film. Ćaleta was not a member of the Grupo media cartel, but through some marketing companies that he controlled, as a capable entrepreneur, he began cooperating with Nova TV. Just as the Grupo quartet, Ćaleta believed that the national TV tender would bring huge profits. He was not a co-owner of Nova TV, but the shares in the television station were taken over by a company that Ćaleta was connected to. Since 2000, Nova TV had an agreement on exclusive partnership with operative companies that were controlled by Ćaleta’s business partners, called “Ćaleta’s group”. The operative company is the owner of the transmitter rented to Nova TV, and they also used marketing services from GRP media, a company where Ćaleta is the owner and director.

After five years of this cooperation, the transmitter was supposed to be transferred into the ownership of Nova TV. In order for the transmitter to be rented to others at the same time, the secret owners of Nova TV tried to illegally adopt it while the agreement was still valid. “Ćaleta’s group” began buying shares in Nova TV through a legal financial arrangement. In one such arrangement, through his marketing company GRP Media in September and October 2000, Ćaleta lent 5 million kuna to Grubišić. As a guarantee that the loan would be returned, Grubišić guaranteed shared in Jadran Film to the creditor. Because Grubišić did not return the loan, Ćaleta decided to officially takeover the shares in which he would attain 24% of the shares in Nova TV. In order to cheat the creditor, Grubišić transferred those shares in the company over to his three year old son, Jagor. Aware of the possibility that they would lose control over Nova TV, the four partners in Grupo created the impression through their controlled media that this was a skirmish between two men for the control of marketing and television space. Ćaleta’s administration spent months in conflict with Damir Vujinović who represented the secret partners.

That is how Grupo wanted to create and control the damage after Ćaleta reported their manipulation over the Nova TV shares. Alongside Grubišić, Ćaleta also sued Enver Hadžiabdić for manipulation of the shares and deceit, who held 15% of the shares of Nova TV through his company Continental. Continental advertised its video assortment for months on Nova TV, but it never paid for these services. Hadžiabdić claimed that he did not need to pay, because that was the deal with Ćaleta. When the debt reached 4 million kuna, Continental’s account was blocked and the court decided to seize the company. Afraid of going bankrupt, Hadžiabdić agreed to pay off his debt with his shares in Nova TV. That is how the creditor stopped the seizure in Continental, and in exchange the Nova TV shares under the ownership of Continental were transferred to Pitos, a company from the “Ćaleta’s group”, along with additional payments. The transfer of the shares was approved by the Telecommunications Council. When Pitos withdrew its request for the seizure of Continental, Hadžiabdić sold the same 15% shares to Chris Bojanović, well known as the former director of Tisak. The Telecommunication Council also approved this transfer. Of course, Bojanović was not purchasing those shares for himself; it was a cover-up for the group that wanted to get rid of Ćaleta.

“Ćaleta’s group” then reported Hadžiabdić, and the transaction was seen as classic deceit. Hadžiabdić was not even the real owner of those shares, he was protecting them for two directors from Večernji List, who decided to hide their “entrepreneurial acrobatics” after Večernji List was sold to Austrian Styria.
As discovered by Ivo Pukanić, the then main editor at Nacional, with help from all documents in the secret Grupo cartel, Ninoslav Pavić transferred his Nova TV shares over to a nonexistent company in order to temporarily hide his ownership share. Pavić participated in Nova TV through EPH and Sports News. Ownership shares from those companies were transferred to the Orlando F and Sportel KA-VA companies by Pavić. Investigators later discovered that these companies did not exist, that their founders and directors were made up, and that the transfer of the co-ownership rights were authorized with a falsified stamp. Pavić bought time in this manipulation, and his calculations were as followed: if he could be sure that the Grupo affair was once and for all removed from daily news, his legal representatives would “realize” that the agreements on the transfer of their shares were signed with fictitious companies, and the shares were once again returned to EPH. In the beginning, Ćaleta assisted him, and Pavić guaranteed 25% of the shares would be sold to Rick Sheldon, Ćaleta’s partner from London. Pavić was convinced that after the discovery of the Grupo affair, the government would seize the tender, particularly the shares in Nova TV, so he wanted to handover the fictitious ownership to a foreigner to stop such a move by the government. His fear was not necessary. Because their was no legal state, nothing occurred apart from Pavić spending one night in prison.

If the government functioned correctly, everyone that was pulled into the chain of criminal activity by Pavić through Grubišić would be in prison: Orsat Zovko who falsely presented himself as the director of the nonexistent Orlando F, Davor Vrbanjac, an unemployed reporter who put his signature and falsified stamp on the made up Sportel KA-VA, as well as Enver Hadžiabdić, the president of the Nova TV Supervisory Board who did not take the time to write the nonexistent companies in the shareholder’s book along with the new valid co-owners of Nova TV.

Pavić was very disturbed when Vrbanjac sold the shares that were held by Pavić to “Ćaleta’s group”. Even though lawsuits were brought up on all sides, despite all permanent fraction conflicts, Ćaleta’s group has been controlling the Nova TV program for the past several months, which has become especially popular because of the SuperNova Music Talents show, as well as sports programs. Everything has significantly increased their advertising income, which is directed from Nova TV to Ćaleta’s company, GRP Media.

After the second national TV tender in Croatia was won over by a consortium under the wing of Germany’s RTL several months ago, the interest for the purchase of Nova TV has been shown by Murdoch’s News Corporation, RTL’s opponent from that tender. Ćaleta began negotiating the sale of Nova TV for €20-25 million. It is not known how the actual owners, such as Pavić and Kutle, of a portion of Nova TV shares reacted to that. It is indicative, however, that on the day of the attack on Ćaleta, Grubišić was meant to go to the County Courts in Zagreb to explain the circumstances of the transfer of shares from Jadran Film to his three year old son Jagor. Those shares were meant to be taken by Ćaleta, because Grubišić did not return the debt of 5 million kuna on time.
The police have a long list of people that have a motive to attack Ćaleta. As Nacional discovered, the police and the District Attorney believe that a professional hit man was hired by the members of the Grupo media cartel. If this is correct, it would show that one secret cartel, because of domination over influential Croatian media, will not stop short of murder to protect the suspicious property that they used to try to control Croatia’s media.