Austria did not seek additional documentation concerning Zagorec’s extradition, as they concluded that this is not a case of political persecutionVladimir Zagorec is no longer able to access his assets in Croatia. The State Attorney’s Office decided to freeze all his assets in Croatia, including a great deal of real estate, worth millions of euro. This decision was made over suspicions that Zagorec had attained these assets illegally, as his personal earnings while in state service and in retirement were far from sufficient to purchase such properties. Zagorec’s assets in Croatia include: commercial space at Ilica Street 10 (three totalling 41, 110 and 355 m2), an entire building on Hatzova ulica and a boutique with designer clothing (150 m2), owned by his wife Klarisa, on Ulica Kralja Drzislava. Also on the list is a weekend house in Njivice on the island of Krk, which is 252 m2 in size, surrounded by 525 m2 of land and 629 m2 of forest. This brings the total up to over 500 square metres in the heart of the capital.

Zagorec received all this property on a gift deed from a certain woman from Venezuela, to whom the property had been returned in the process of denationalization. Considering that the property is worth a minimum of 2000 euro per square metre, this woman in fact gave Zagorec the gift of eight million kuna. This is now of great interest to the Croatian judiciary, due to suspicions of money laundering. It is very difficult to believe that a woman from Caracas would simply hand over such valuable property to a retired, well off general of the Croatian army.

Zagorec’s assets in Austria, valued at 260 million euro, have not yet been frozen, as the procedure for provision of international legal aid is ongoing and not all the required documents have been received. However, the Austrians have ruled to look into all his accounts in that country. Zagorec was expected to be extradited back to Croatia at the beginning of June, though this did not occur. However, Nacional’s legal sources claim that the extradition is only a matter of time as Austria did not seek additional documentation relating to the extradition, as they have concluded that this is not a case of political persecution, as the request is well backed with evidence and so a final decision on the extradition is expected soon.

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HATZOVA 1 – an entire building in the centre of ZagrebLast Friday, Krunoslav Trajkovic, driver for the company Molteh under formal ownership of Zagorec’s friend Roman Binder, but in fact owned by Zagorec, was apprehended in his Mercedes cabriolet at the Macelj border crossing with Slovenia. The Mercedes SL 300 from 1987, with registration plates ZG 7009-F is owned by the retired general. When asked by the border police where he was going, Trajkovic responded that he was taking the car to Zagorec in Vienna and that he needed to deliver a bag of documents to him. In the large black bag in the car, police found a file with more than 500 documents labelled as military secrets.

Trajkovic stated that Roman Binder and Josip Ferek, close associates of Zagorec, told him to drive the car to a certain address in Vienna and to deliver the bag of documents to Zagorec’s secretary. Zagorec’s attorney, Zvonimir Hodak, stated that Zagorec intended to use these documents to write his memoirs, as the general has only likely now as a fugitive discovered his hidden passion for writing. However, police did not agree with Hodak’s claims and both the vehicle and documents were seized, due to the stamp of confidentiality on the documents. The majority were originals, and only a small number were photocopies, were all stamped as military secrets, and only a handful were Zagorec’s personal documents from the period of his function in the Defence Ministry.

Several of the documents relate to the HVO army and to the production and trade of munitions, while others are correspondence between Zagorec and another retired general, Ljubo Cesic Rojs. The remainder of the documents relate to arms and automobile trading. Nacional’s sources claim that the exact content of the majority of the documents is still being established, but that already now it is clear that they will assist in revealing a new circle of persons that participated in arms smuggling and illegal war profiteering.

Only after detailed examination will it be possible to determine what course the investigation should take. The fact remains that all the documents were classified military documents and should in no way have been in the hands of an unauthorized person or taken out of the country. The fact that they tried to remove documents that must be archived in the Defence Ministry and RH Alan only proves that these documents contained many important facts, such as who participated in the arms smuggling. Also, attorney Hodak lied when he claimed that this was not a criminal offence because, besides the fact that it is a criminal offence to remove classified documents, the second offence was in the attempt to hinder a criminal investigation.

There is an anecdote from 2000 relating to these documents, at the time of the change of power in Croatia. Zagorec was panicking and feared that the new coalition government would put him behind bars. In a panicked attempt to conduct damage control, Zagorec took the documents from the MORH building by lowering the documents through an open window to Ferek who was waiting below.

JOSIP FEREK, one of Zagorec’s closest associatesIn the bag seized from Trajkovic, police also found blank military police identity cards, that required only a name and photograph added. Also seized from the car were personal identity cards and passports, all bearing Zagorec’s photographs, but with several different names, which Hodak himself admitted to. “That is a well known thing, these documents were issued to him in the early 1990s while he was procuring arms for Croatia,” he said, without explaining why Zagorec would need such documents now, since he has long been in retirement.

The fact that the police were waiting for Trajkovic at the Macelj border crossing, knowing that he would come, only proves that a very intensive investigation is ongoing against Zagorec and likely includes wiretapping on all his close associates and tracking everything related to his business, including arms issues, the transfer of assets or loans for business ventures. One of the most important, and positive sides of the story, is that this saga has led many people to contact the police and State Attorney’s Office, bringing with them documents that can assist to reconstruct the entire arms smuggling saga.