On Thursday, 5 May, General Ante Gotovina and his lawyers continued their criminal “prosecution against unknown persons for criminal acts of forging official documents” concerning the transcript of the discussion of the late President Tudjman and the leadership of the Croatian military held on 31 July 2005. Based on this transcript, the ICTY raised an indictment against Gotovina for his participation in the criminal operation during and following Operation Storm.

On Monday, 2 May, the State Prosecutor’s office announced that the audio recordings of the Brijuni meetings had been found and that with their help, it could be confirmed that the meeting transcript was not a forgery. However, the fugitive general and their attorneys claim that the State Prosecutor gave cause for the continued prosecution in its resolution of 29 April 2005. The section of the resolution upon which Gotovina and his attorneys based their request reads as follows:

“The authenticity of the transcripts in question of 31 July 1995 emerges from the content of the audio recordings marked under the numbers 749, 800, 801 and 802 obtained from the Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia, or rather from the Committee for the takeover and handing over of Croatian state archive of files and documents which were created under Dr. Franjo Tudjman as President of the Republic of Croatia. Reviewing the same, it was confirmed that there are only negligible differences from the written transcript from the same meeting which do not influence the authenticity of their content. Namely, the negligible differences are that in the written transcript of 31 July 1995, in comparison with the audio recording of the same meeting, it is evident that certain words were omitted or certain words were incorrectly transcribed in the transcript, and in certain portions of the transcript, the speaker of the words was incorrectly noted, or rather that the speaker was incorrectly identified. However, the abovementioned differences arose due to errors by the dactylographers who transcribed the audio recordings, or to their misunderstanding of individual words in sentences stated by the meeting participants, however, these errors are not of influence concerning the overall context of the recorded meeting.

In light of all the previous procedures of collecting facts and the statements of the questioned witnesses, it could not be established that the content of the transcript of the meeting of 31 July 1995, held then by then President of the Republic of Croatia Dr. Franjo Tudjman with his commanders in the Bijela Villa on the Brijuni islands was in any way altered, considering that the transcript is identical to the audio recording of the meeting, with several negligible differences.”

These two paragraphs were sufficient for Gotovina and his attorneys to suspect that the State Prosecutor was hiding something concerning the transcripts and the newly found audiotapes. Furthermore, the witness statements, as compiled by the team of attorneys and confirmed by a notary public, support their claim. In their Request, they note that Admiral Davor Domazet, Miroslav Tuđman, General Pavao Miljavac, General Željko Glasnović, Admiral Ante Budimir and Brigadir Marko Rajčić attended the meeting and that their presence was not noted on the transcripts, and that they all reject the authenticity of the content of the transcripts.
Gotovina’s attorneys were dissatisfied that the abovementioned officers were not listed in the investigative request by the State Prosecutor’s office to the investigative judge of the Zagreb County Court, Kresimir Devčić. The unofficial stance of the State Prosecutor’s office is that it is good that the listed generals were not called in for questioning to the County Court, for they would have rejected the authenticity of the transcripts and charges could have been filed against them for perjury. However, now that their names are listed in the new request by Gotovina’s attorneys in the prosecution of unknown forgers, the situation becomes quite serious for them. They could now be accused of perjury, however, the State Prosecutor’s office could find itself in a very delicate situation if it turns out that these generals are telling the truth.

However, if the statement by the State Prosecutor’s office, under Mladen Bajić, is carefully analyzed, it becomes clear that this statement as formulated leaves room for a series of possibilities regarding the now famous transcript. Bajić wrote that the transcript was in no way altered. Perhaps not intentionally, however, even the State Prosecutor’s office admits that there are several unintentional errors. A forgery is a document which is intentionally altered to obtain gain for oneself or others. If these are unintentional errors which do not influence the content of the transcript, then this cannot be considered a forgery. Therefore it is clear that the State Prosecutor’s office provided a solution which also suits the political moment, and Sanader’s requirements in his obligations towards the EU and ICTY. However, as Nacional has learned from sources close to the State Prosecutor’s office, their stance is that according to the reviewed audiotapes, it is clear that the meeting held on 31 July 1995 did not discuss the planning and execution of a criminal operation and the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, but that the military terminology of the time was used. Instead of saying “The Army of the Republic of Srpska Krajina”, everyone then, including the military leadership, abbreviated this by saying the “Serbs”, which did not refer to civilians: women, children, the elderly and other civilians.

If such a context is clearly taken from the reviewed tapes, then the question arises as to why the State Prosecutor or the state administration with Sanader and Mesić did not inform the public, which for months has been bombarded with the problems concerning this famous transcript.

In order to convince Gotovina’s attorneys and to satisfy the interests of the public, Mladen Bajić and the state administration should permit the entire transcript or recording to be made publicly available, either via television, radio or the internet. Only in this way can all the suspicions be cleared up that someone may have manipulated with the tapes and transcripts. Until this is done and the people can see for themselves, there will be no peace in this case.

Gotovina’s attorneys have proposed something similar in requesting that the audiotape nos. 749, 800, 801 and 802 be made available to them and that they call together all the surviving participants of the 31 July 1995 meeting as witnesses: Pavao Miljavac, Marijan Mareković, Marko Rajčić, Željko Glasnović, Ante Budimir, Davor Domazet, Miroslav Tuđman, Miljenko Crnjac, Mirko Norac, Mladen Markač and Vladimir Zagorec. They have also requested that the employees of the Office of the President Neda Sakač, Ljubica Šikić, Ljiljana Hasanović Mandić, Gordana Kolak and Mirko Šimunić be called in as witnesses and that the tapes be played before them.

These five employees of the Office of the President recorded and transcribed the audiotapes from the Brijuni meeting. All of the technical conditions for recording and the very act of recording was made possible by Mirko Simunic. As part of his investigation, Judge Devčić also questioned Željko Kramarić, who was at that time was deputy director of State Protocol; Zdravko Bušić, director of the archive of the Office of the President, Neda Sakač, nee Šola, advisor in the Office of the President and who was employed as an archivist. Judge Devčić finally questioned Gordan Radin, who was Chef du Cabinet of the Office of President Tudjman. He and Neda Sakač stated that the list which was attached to the envelope with the transcripts, was not required to list all the persons present at the meeting, particularly if there were many. Furthermore, that meeting, which had twenty participants, was not recorded on video, which was the usual practice in the Office of the President in Zagreb. Video recording was essential at large meetings, because otherwise the dactylographers could not determine who present was speaking. Only by comparing the videotape with the audiotape could it be confirmed with certainty who was saying what.

The attorneys have raised yet another suspicious questions, and are requesting answers. The transcript states precisely that the conversation lasted 110 minutes, while only 104 minutes are present on the audiotapes, which means that six minutes are missing of the conversation. The transcribing of the Brijuni meeting was conducted by four dactylographers, which is also seen in the initials in the margins. Mirko Šimunić prepared the meeting for recording and later handed the tapes over to the dactylographers, who had their procedure. Each dactylographer would receive 10 to 15 minutes of tape to transcribe. The transcribed tape would be put into a special envelope, which was sealed with the official seal, and the envelope closed with self-adhesive tape. An A4 size piece of paper would be taped to the envelope and included the basic information on the contents, including the time and date of the meeting and the participants present. Such an envelope would be delivered to the Office of the President, and each subsequent request and use of the transcript would be noted on the envelope itself when the Director of the archive of the Office of the President extracted the envelope. According to Nacional’s information, the Brijuni transcript was not in a sealed and taped envelope, which also makes the entire case seem more suspicious.

In order to solve this mystery and to respond to the new request by Gotovina’s attorneys Marijan Pedišić, Marin Ivanović, Ivo Farčić and Luka Mišetić, the State Prosecutor’s office will have to make the tape public. There are no legal regulations strong enough to prevent this from happened, for only with the help of this tape can everyone in Croatia learn whether this meeting truly was to craft a criminal plan or whether this was simply a clumsy transcribing job of the audiotape, which was then used by the ICTY as their key evidence that all the murders, torching, theft, destruction and the flight of the Serbs was a crafted plan by Tudjman, his associates and the military leadership of the Republic of Croatia. If the audiotape can show that this was an unintentional dactylographic error, or a lack of understanding for the circumstances the Brijuni meeting was held in, then the state administration of the Republic of Croatia should take a strong stance and demand a revision of the entire ICTY indictment, not only against General Gotovina, but also against Generals Ivan Čermak and Mladen Markač.

Several days ago, a story was placed whereby Carla Del Ponte had changed her interpretation of command responsibility, which simply is not correct. A commander can only be held responsible only if he knew that the crime would be committed and he did not prevent that from happening, or if the perpetrator of a crime was not punished after the fact. He cannot be held accountable by virtue of his function alone. In the case of Ante Gotovina, the Chief Prosecutor will have to prove that the fugitive general knew that a crime would be committed and that he did not prevent it from happening or punished the perpetrator. The question arises as to why she claims that she can prove that Gotovina knew about the crimes. The answer to that question could be given by UNPROFOR Commander in Knin, Canadian General Alain Forand. It was he in the first hours of Operation Storm who sent a letter of protest to General Gotovina, claiming that Croatia was carrying out a war crime for it was “shelling the town of Knin, the Knin hospital, and there were hundreds of dead Serbian civilians on the streets of Knin”. At that time, he threatened Gotovina that he would be prosecuted by the Hague Tribunal.

From sources close to Gotovina’s attorneys, Nacional has learned why Gotovina did not listen to UNPROFOR. The American side, which greatly assisted in preparing and executing Storm, recommended to HV and Gotovina directly to not be concerned about UNPROFOR, because that institution was working for the Serbs and was trying to halt Operation Storm. The recommendation was to continue moving ahead, regardless of the Canadians, until they received the signal from the US to end the assault. And that is the way it was. For that reason, Gotovina’s attorneys have from the start insisted that showing the American role in Storm before the Hague Tribunal is of exceptional importance, for if Carla Del Ponte brings in Forand as a witness or his inferiors to claim that Gotovina knew about the crimes, the defense council has a right to bring in the US intelligence agents to confirm that they told Gotovina “not to listen to UNPROFOR”. Gotovina’s defense council also has the right to call in Gutman and Bonner to confirm that Forand’s claims do not stand. The defense team believes that this game concerning the “altered interpretation of command responsibility” is the beginning of the execution of the first item of Sanader’s “action plan” to criminalize their client and to satisfy Carla Del Ponte.