Ivo Pukanić It was President Mesic who introduced me to Zeljko Bagic in late spring 2000, several months after Mesic was elected Croatian President. At the start, I did not take to Bagic, as I usually do not like people who are very distrustful at first glace. Later I learned that he was a police inspector and lecturer at the Police Academy, which explained his behaviour. When I became better acquainted with him, I saw that under that rigid exterior was a kind, gentle soul, eternally loyal and always ready to lend a hand to anyone in need. That is when we became friends.

Of course, his explanations, oftentimes difficult to understand, frequently got on my nerves, but within them was that police instinct which commonly leads to the truth. I became convinced of this several times. His relationship with President Mesic stretched back to the early 1990s back in Belgrade. Then Bagic was his personal bodyguard while Mesic was president of Yugoslavia. Mesic’s deep trust in Bagic was born then and when Mesic became Croatian President, he gave Bagic three important functions: Chef du Cabinet, Secretary of the Office of the President and National Security Advisor and the relationship between Bagic and Mesic was truly unique – one had never seen before or since. While Bagic was with Mesic, Mesic was the most powerful and best informed man in the country. Thanks to his practical knowledge of police and intelligence affairs, he was well aware of political relationships and had numerous acquaintances and good ties with reporters. Bagic was the invisible shield for all attacks against Mesic and his man of greatest trust. I am a friend of Bagic’s, but I was never able to learn a single intriguing detail which could harm Mesic. Everything I know about any sticky situation I learned from the President himself.

I am therefore the person who watched the development of the relationship between these two men from a very close distance. The tragedy that occurred in this relationship is not on the President’s honour. When pressures arose from the media and foreign services to remove Bagic due to his alleged involvement in Gotovina’s case and in the Petrac case, the President did not feel the need to publicly speak out and defend his closest associate. And he knew very well that Bagic was completely innocent and had absolutely nothing to do with the allegations. Instead of standing in his defense, he publicly turned his back on him, stating in one interview which he never refuted later, chat Bagic was only the archivist in his office. In order to avoid harming Mesic in his re-election campaign, Bagic withdrew on his own, handed in his resignation and left humiliated, not accepting the offered replacement job or a pension. Even today, he in unemployed. He is an only child from a Partisan family. His father was shot twice: once by a Chetnik, once by an Ustasha.
After such a disgraceful discharge from his employment, his father was found lying dead in the kitchen and three months later, his mother died. Publicly marked and humiliated, without work or a pension, losing his mother and father in a three month span, a new tragedy beset him. His beautiful 21 year old daughter Iva was diagnosed with having a brain tumour. She was operated and underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment. In the meantime, his wife was diagnosed with lupus which has affected her liver. All within one year.

Before Mesic was re-elected, I spoke with hi. I told him that I had never asked him for anything, but I was now asking him to rehabilitate Bagic after his re-election. He confirmed to me then that Bagic was the victim of a media war and other interests and was absolutely innocent. The arrest of Gotovina confirmed that fact. And all of Bagic’s activities to try to help peacefully resolve the Gotovina-Hague case were made upon direct presidential orders.

Mesic was re-elected over one year ago. In that year, he has said not a single word to rehabilitate Bagic. Nor has he kept his promise to restore the dignity of an honest man, one of his closest and most loyal associates. Which the president knows best. Not only has Bagic not been rehabilitated, but his ban on entering the EU has been extended. Which is a further disgrace for this state and its administration. Despite all the suffering and tragedy the Bagic family has experienced, it is still not too late for the President to stand up and speak the truth about Bagic and show at least a part of the emotions we believe he has. This will most help Bagic’s family, which was ready to do anything for the president. His re-election is behind him. No harm can be done.