Miroslav Kutle rides again! Once the greatest HDZ tycoon who enjoyed direct political protection of the former almighty Ivić Pašalić, he has succeeded in collecting on his part of the media empire his partners from the criminal media cartel Grupo wanted to steal from him. The final act of this drama, which began with his release from a 16 month prison stay, took place last week, when Kutle took control over Jadran Film from his friend Vinko Grubišić.

Denis Kuljiš In an interview for Nacional, Denis Kuljiš stated that Grubišić was not thrown out of Jadran Film, and that he continues to control 22% of the shares of that company. He also stated that he too was surprised to be named to the head of the supervisory board. He denied any possibility that he was appointed as a representative for Ninoslav Pavić. “Had I known that, I wouldn’t have accepted, for as Pavić’s employee I would be in a conflict of interest, which I would never permit,” Kuljiš stated for Nacional. Kuljiš made a number of illogical comments for Nacional, which suggests that his statements need to be taken with a grain of salt. He claims that he has no idea where the most recent shareholder’s meeting of Jadran Film was held, and he has tried to give the impression that he has no idea what his authorities are in his new position. That is why he did not respond to the question of how the money received from the sale of Nova TV would be distributed. Kuljiš refused to comment on whether Jadran Film would promote the interests of Miroslav Kutle, which directly suggests their former business relationship. Kutle also refused to comment for Nacional on the recent events in Jadran Film. Jadran Film certainly is not important for its pathetic film productions, but rather because Grupo holds 15% of Nova TV through Jadran Film, a share worth about 4.5 million euro. This week, the sale of this national television station is to be finalized. The partners got their hands on the station thanks to Ivić Pašalić who was President Tudjman’s advisor with full control over the Telecommunications Council. The owner of Jadran Film at the moment Nova TV is sold will have 4.5 million euro at their disposal in the account of the Zagreb film company.

Vinko Grubišić, who many declared to be a media genius, was left with nothing overnight – “easy come, easy go”. He controlled over 75% of Jadran Film, partially in his name (later out of fear of the police, he transferred the shares to his two year old son Jagor), and the rest was in the hands of fictitious owners. He put his man in the director’s position and ordered the phony shareholders to do whatever they were told. And they did. To Grubišić’s demise. Kutle, who had legal support within Mario Polić, succeeded in scheduling a shareholder’s assembly which Grubišić did not know about. Mario Polić is the husband of Sanja Polić, the long-time secretary to Ivić Pašalić, and a person of complete trust to the notorious doctor who Ivo Sanader threw out of HDZ.

Kutle managed to “buy off” Grubišić’s director and to eliminate Grubišić’s men from Jadran Film at the assembly, and instead put Denis Kuljiš as president of the supervisory board. Kuljiš, once a distinguished journalist, fell to the lowest of professional levels and became Kutle’s messenger boy back in 1997, when he tried to sell Nacional, which he helped to established, to Kutle. He was thrown out of the company for that. Since then, Kutle has financed him, he bought him a “Lancia” automobile, he got him a job at Nedjeljena Dalmacija, gave him the use of his private plane when he needed it and paid him. In return, Kuljiš did his dirty media work for him, in which this takeover of power in Jadran Film was one of the more harmless acts.

Grubišić, who lives in constant fear of being arrested, was completely surprised by this blitzkrieg prepared by his best man Kutle. He was convinced that only a few days separated him from the handsome loot of 4.5 million euro, which he could use to pay off his debts and maintain his family’s high standard of living, which they became accustomed to thanks to everything Kutle gave them.

Through direct TV sales programs on OTV, Grubišić earned a lot of money, bought several businesses, a large flat on Pantovčak. Kutle gave him a large house in the countryside, Jadran Film, OTV… As Nacional has learned, Kutle decided to take it all away from Grubišić. Last week, he forced him to begin transferring the shares of OTV to his company, which were owned by fictitious people such as Frane Boban.
Kutle’s ally in this take over was Ivić Pašalić, the only person he did not speak ill of after his release from prison. Though he is without any political power, Pašalić is still precious to Kutle, as few can live up to their joint schemes.

With that said, one must not forget the 16 months Kutle spent in the Remetinec detention centre. Among the inmates, who greatly respect authority, Kutle was one of the leaders. Firstly, Kutle is a well educated and bright man, and he is not a man inclined to betrayal. Which is respected in that kind of place. It was no problem for him to have good logistical support after his release from the men he met behind bars, and who have a very strict code of ethics and conduct. Under such circumstances, few people today in Croatia have that kind of support. And all those who thought he would stay in jail for good and prayed that he would be hit by a bus after his release are on his payback list. And his release left them standing cold in their footsteps.

The first on the list was Ninoslav Pavić, who Kutle was most angry with. Since 1995 when Kutle became majority shareholder of Globus, and then the whole of EPH, Pavić, as the fictitious owner and director of the company, failed to pay him a single kuna of profit. While Kutle was in prison, Pavić bought a villa on Tuškanac (where his car was blown up), he completely renovated his villa in Novi Vinodolski, went through several luxury cars, invested in expensive paintings and art and played the role of the great and honest publisher who stated that he barely even knew Kutle at the mention of his name. With all that, Kutle learned that Pavić betrayed him in the sale of 50% of EPH to the German company WAZ. Pavić publicly showed that he received 32 million DEM for 50% of the company, he reported 36 million to his secret partners, while in fact he received 40 million. Four million obviously ended up in his pockets, while his secret partners Kutle, Pašalić and Grubišić knew nothing about it. When Kutle found out, hard times followed for Pavić. To date, he has allegedly paid Kutle 6 million Euro, and in order to settle the debt fully, he owes him another 6 million, though the issue of dividends not paid out over all these years has still not been resolved. Pavić’s problem is that it is very difficult to pull that much money that is not doing so well. Therefore, his big chance is the sale of Nova TV, in which Pavić would let Kutle have his share, thus completely settling the debt.

Therefore, Nova TV has become very important in resolving the claims between the secret partners in the criminal media cartel Grupo. For this reason, they were all nervous as Ivan Ćaleta took advantage of Kutle’s jail time and media pressure on the remaining members of Grupo, who could not publicly promote themselves, and to buy out a portion of the shares from the fictitious owners and thus rule over Nova TV. When Pavić and Kutle tried through a mediator at the end of last year to get him to consent to selling Nova TV, in order to work out the partnership relations, Ćaleta refused, certain that he was strong enough politically and financially to overcome their pressures.

Despite their threats, which he never reported to police, in the end he gave in and consented to sell Nova TV after receiving three bullets to the legs from an unknown attacker. He also gave his consent from his hospital bed to return the shares of Jadran Film to Vinko Grubišić, which Ćaleta had received as part of Grubišić’s debt of 5 million kuna to his company. For the past six months, negotiations have been ongoing between this entire army of owners, some real, some fictitious of Nova TV on one side and the media group CME and Raiffeissen Fond on the other. Now that the deal is near closing, Kutle had to secure that the 20% of the money that will go to Jadran Film will not stay in the hand of his best man Vinko, who has never had such serious problems.

In order to fully realize his plan to punish all those who turned their backs on him while he was in jail and thought that they were the true owners of his media companies, he has only to take on the radio empire that is under the control of his other partner, Jurja Hrvačić. Hrvačić is certainly the most capable of all of Kutle’s media acquisitions. Had it not been for him, like Ćaleta on Nova TV, these media would never have become so attractive to buyers and so profitable. With his cleverness and business sense, Hrvačić created an unthinkable radio empire stretching from Narodni and Obiteljski Radio to Radio Velika Gorica and the ever-present Media Servis which serves all the local radio stations in Croatia with news. In this way, placing the news, he is one of the important formers of public opinion in Croatia and a true money-making factory. Indeed, this radio empire came to be through Kutle’s invested money and Pašalić’s concession granting, however, a significant reason for the overall success is Hrvačić’s competency. For Vinko Grubišić also received media and money, and he failed to succeeded. Considering that Hrvačić refused to calmly hand over the radio empire to Kutle, he has fallen into trouble. He found a landmine at the front door of his family home in Velika Gorica as a warning. To date, it has not been confirmed who put it there. The pressure on him will only increase as the opening of the beautiful new building at the entrance to Zagreb approaches. This building will be home to the most modern radio studios and the new Zagreb TV station, TV Sljeme, whose owners are Hrvačić and Zagreb deputy mayor Milan Bandić. And that is another nice piece of loot for Kutle, who considers these radio stations to be his property.

When Kutle is finished with Hrvačić, he will have accomplished that which he swore he would do – return all that belongs to him. All those in conflict with him are now praying that the Court will convict him for crimes in his former company Tisak. However, as the case moves forward, their hopes are melting away, as Kutle is making fools out of the Court, police and prosecutor’s office – and it appears that they will be helpless in this case. He also announced that when he gets out of jail, he had no fears of being convicted. For, as he stated, he did everything according to the laws of the time. It seems as the Kutle the lawyer was in the right.