On 25 January 2005, Chief State Prosecutor, Mladen Bajić requested an investigation be opened against unknown perpetrators in order to reveal who created the forgery of the so-called Brijuni Transcripts, which formed the basis of a large part of the indictments against Generals Mladen Markač, Ivan Čermak and fugitive Ante Gotovina. On Saturday, Bajić officially confirmed this news for Nacional.

“It is correct that on 25 January, the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office in Zagreb submitted a request for investigation to the investigative judge of the Zagreb County Court against unknown perpetrators for the forgery of the so-called Brijuni transcripts,” Bajić commented for Nacional.

Those well informed judicial circles confirmed for Nacional that Bajić is expecting the competent investigative judge to launch the investigation this week. Bajić decided to take this measure after personally spending weeks looking into the foundations of the criminal charges filed by Gotovina’s attorneys on 19 October 2004 that an unknown person forged the transcript which then formed the basis of the majority of the indictment against their clients. Nacional wrote about Bajić’s investigation back in December 2004. It has not been excluded that Bajić began to look into the background of the Brijuni transcripts because back in summer 1994, Nacional wrote about the possibility that the transcripts were a forgery.

The request for an official investigation is a significant move by the Chief State Prosecutor, which also creates a little breathing room for the government in their battle against the extreme pressures coming from ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Pone and a part of the EU Member States on the Gotovina case. Bajić’s request also indirectly warns of the substantial success of Gotovina’s defense team in their battle to improve their client’s status. Bajić’s move shows that the State Prosecutor believes there is truly a high degree of suspicion that the controversial Brijuni transcripts could be a forgery, and if these suspicions prove warranted, this could significantly ease the position of Čermak, Markač and Gotovina, if not completely bringing down their indictments. Some even believe that this move by Bajić is one of the reasons for the most recent great wave of political pressures of those EU Member States not inclined towards Croatia, which formally began with the coordinated statements by British Foreign Minister Jack Straw and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. On 31 January, less than one week after Bajić requested this investigations, Straw openly requested a postponement for the beginning of Croatia’s negotiations for EU accession, while on the same day, Rehn commented that at that time he could not give a positive recommendation for Croatia on that issue.

Well informed judicial circles claim that it is difficult to expect that the competent investigative judge will reject Bajić’s request for an investigation in this case. Furthermore, Bajić is unofficially expecting this investigation to be very thorough, and to include several levels of questioning. Gotovina’s attorneys requested that the authenticity of the transcripts be verified by allowing insight into the original text of the transcripts, and comparing that to the audiotape which the transcripts are based on. The charges state that the criminal act of forgery occurred between the summer of 1995 and the spring of 2004 when this document appeared as part of the indictment. This document first appeared in the trial of Slobodan Milošević, who used it for his defense. It is not known how this transcript got into the hands of his attorneys, which further suggests that this could be a forgery. In the explanation of the charges, Gotovina’s attorneys claim that in the preparation of their client, the compiled information about that meeting, contacted those present and discovered many manipulations.

The contents of the controversial transcripts have been denied by Davorin Domazet, Miroslav Tuđman, Pavao Miljavac, Željko Glasnović, Ante Budimir and Mirko Rajčić. All these participants of that meeting have certified their statements at a notary public. Nacional has also spoken with many of the participants of that meeting, including Vladimir Zagorec and Miljenko Crnjac, who have also rejected the authenticity of the transcript. The State Prosecutor’s Office has also spoken with several of the surviving participants of the controversial meeting on the Brijuni islands on 31 July 1995, and has requested the audio recording of the meeting, the original transcript and the transcript envelope from the Office of the President. To date, the audio recording has not been found.

For that reason, it appears that questioning the surviving participants will be crucial, as they have denied the authenticity of the controversial transcript. The investigative judge will also question the technical staff who participated in the creation of the transcript or who recorded the meeting. The initials present in the margins of the transcript suggest that it was compiled by three persons. The investigative judge will question these people and all the staff of the Office of the President who might have come into contact with the transcript from summer 1995 to the present time.

Though this move by Bajić might have angered the main opponents to Croatia’s speedy accession to the EU, lead by Great Britain, Bajić’s action is also a help to Premier Sanader to more easily defend himself from the HSP parliamentary initiative from late 2004 for the formation of a parliamentary investigative committee to assess the authenticity of the transcript. Sanader’s majority in the Parliament will be easier to defend from such an initiative, as he will rightfully be able to prove that the judiciary is doing its job in that case and that an investigation is pending. This would also serve to avoid further politicization of the entire case.

When Carla Del Ponte heard about Djapić’s initiative at the end of last year, she became enraged and sent Thomas Osorio, head of the liaison office for the Hague Tribunal with Zagreb, to put informal pressures on the government. Through Osorio, she sent a message to the Premier that forming such a commission would be taking one step back in the relations between Croatia and the ICTY. This was only one in a series of inappropriate moves by the ICTY Chief Prosecutor on the government, which the weekly Globus wrote about in detail when they gave her a media platform for her pressure at the end of last year, just before the submission of her report before the UN.

However, Kenneth Scott, the main ICTY prosecutor in the Gotovina case, had to distance himself from her moves after Gotovina’s attorney Luka Mišetić officially contacted him regarding that pressure. In his letter to Scott, Mišetić precisely noted that such conduct by Del Ponte and Osorio, if such claims were correct, were in violation of the UN Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors and the Standards for Prosecutors of the American Legal Association. Scott responded in writing that the claims on Carla Del Ponte’s opposition to the formation of such a commission were unfounded. He was left with nothing else to write, as otherwise, he would have admitted that Carla Del Ponte was meddling in the affairs of the Croatian Parliament, and obstructing the investigation into the possible forgery of these documents.