DISMISSAL AT THE SPLIT POLICE DEPARTMENT On Monday Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko (right) appointed Josip Bukvic the new chief of police at the Split-Dalmatia County police department Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko has launched the final showdown with high-ranking police officers that have over recent years covered up the former Croatian Prime Minister's corruption octopus. That he would carry out a most earnest purge in the ranks of the police Karamarko announced to all police department chiefs in Croatia at their joint meeting in Zadar on January 22nd.

Most of them were not then aware that their minister was very serious, and his first stroke was as such almost symbolic - early last week he decided on the long-awaited dismissal of Ivan Mercep, the chief of the Split-Dalmatia County police department, who two general police directors - Marijan Benko and Vladimir Faber - were unable to sack over the past six years because of the strong political support he enjoyed from Ivo Sanader and Luka Bebic.

Besides dismissals at the top of the Split police, by mid March a similar scenario is foreseen for the heads of the police in Osijek, Zadar and Gospic, and perhaps at some other police departments whose heads do not fulfil the tasks put before them by Minister Karamarko and Police General Director Oliver Grbic. And the criteria for the sack are very clear.

The first is an evaluation of the past work of individual police chiefs, i.e. their role in covering up the massive corruption apparatus whose web infiltrated every pore of the country during the Sanader reign, for which the most obvious example was Split police chief Ivan Mercep, who almost torpedoed the entire investigation into the Brodosplit scandal. The second criterion is the number of cases of corruption and organised crime that each police department will process over the coming months.

As Nacional's source from the top echelons of the country's police force points out, whichever police chief fails to satisfy these criteria, or if there is a suspicion that he or she is trying to cover up for or protect some local heavy on their terrain, will be sacked under the urgent procedure.

In places where an evaluation indicates collusion between local police heads and local political leaders, the dismissed police chief will be replaced by a police officer from an entirely different part of the country. All of these measures are necessary for the continuation of the war on corruption, which only seriously got off the ground after Sanader left office. Currently it is the police officers in the nation's capital that are faced with the most work on uncovering major scandals, and it comes then as no wonder that they require the assistance of their colleagues from other parts of Croatia in major anti-corruption investigations.

A decision of the police general directorate made a few months ago saw each police county administration send one white-collar crime inspector to Zagreb. Soon these inspectors will return to their own police departments and will process cases of corruption in their own backyards in the second wave.

To succeed in this they will have to have the absolute support of their superiors, and that is why Minister Karamarko and his closest aids intend to sack all incompetent or compromised police chiefs over the coming two months.

It is all part of depoliticising and introducing a greater level of professionalism in the Croatian police launched by former Police General Director Vladimir Faber in late 2008. One of his first moves was to sack the then chief of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County police Ivan Kresic. His term at the post was marked by manifold omissions in the investigation into the death of Australian national Britt Lapthorne, the weak efforts in fighting drug dealers on the island of Korcula and almost no work at all on the part of the police force in cases of corruption and white-collar crime.

In spit of his catastrophic work, Kresic for years enjoyed the support of the HDZ, i.e. Luka Bebic, and even publicly boasted that no one could give him the boot. With the sacking Faber and Karamarko really rubbed Sanader and Bebic the wrong way, and Faber's plan to, following the Kresic dismissal, also sack Ivan Mercep in mid-November came to naught.

It was only in late March of last year that Faber nevertheless succeeded in continuing his removal of HDZ cadres when he gave the head of the Karlovac police Nenad Kranjcec his marching orders, and it was three months later that Faber was "promoted" from the post of Police General Director as a result of Sanader's intolerance towards him.

With the arrival of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor on the scene Interior Minister Karamarko did succeed in strengthening his role in cabinet, and this past autumn let it be known to all police chiefs that they were on "probation", i.e. that he would very soon evaluate their work and fulfilment of set tasks - above all this pertained to cleaning up all of the scandals that had accumulated, and to depoliticising, i.e. "de-Sanaderising" the Croatian police.

These warnings, by all accounts, did not, however, overly concern most police chiefs. As Nacional's source in the top ranks of the police force points out, even though the national leadership, the State Attorney's Office and the police late last year demonstrated by the arrests of what were up to then untouchable managers at state-owned companies and the launching of investigations that a real showdown had finally begun with corruption at top levels, it was all still only happening in the nation's capital.

"It is nice that you are watching everything we are doing in Zagreb like a in some movie, and that none of you have launched a war on corruption in your own backyards," was the alleged message from Tomislav Karamarko to other police chiefs.

Karamarko had an opportunity to tell all police chiefs directly of his plans on upcoming sackings on January 22nd. That day saw the celebration of the 17th anniversary of the military and police Operation Maslenica, held in Zadar, and after the official part of the event, which had pooled the entire national brass, Karamarko and Police General Director Grbic held a meeting last several hours with all chiefs of county police departments.

As some of the participants note, Karamarko was not overly careful in his choice of words. He demonstrated his dissatisfaction with the situation in most county police departments, pointed out that, since he had assumed the post of Minister, most police chiefs had had a full year to show their stuff, and that some police chiefs would be dismissed over the coming two months. Quite expectedly, the first of these was the now former head of the police in Split, Ivan Mercep.

He and his deputy Ante Gudelj were called to Zagreb early last week to the Police General Directorate, where they were informed that they would be relieved of their long-time functions within the week. Mercep's reaction following the meeting betrays his arrogance, because that same day, when asked by reporters, he denied and scoffed at the possibility of his dismissal, and it was only this past weekend that he sobered up and finally grasped that there was no longer anyone in the top ranks of the national leadership to uncritically cover his back as had been the custom these past years.

And there truly are many reasons for Mercep's sacking. In his six years at the helm of the police in Split the department has been one of the shoddiest in the country. Not only did the police in Split not uncover and solve major cases of white-collar crime and corruption, but it also avoided dealing with cases as obvious as the many scandals linked to Croatian Motorways Ltd, i.e. the construction of a motorway in southern Croatia. Mercep's greatest misdeed, however, is the Brodosplit case.
After Nacional revealed in the spring of 2006 that the board of directors and supervisory board of Brodosplit had, in the frame of the construction of four ships for the German shipping company Vessels, laundered almost 6 million dollars through several Cypriot firms, police chief Mercep and his head of department for commercial crime Ivan Lozic did everything they could - to prevent the processing of the case.

MARIJAN BENKO was Police General Director from December of 2005 to November of 2008 and tried on several occasions to dismiss Ivan Mercep, but was never permitted to do so by politicians The culmination of their negligence, i.e. protective stance towards crime, was demonstrated by Mercep and Lozic by their manifold obstruction of the investigation they only nominally led. Their police officers carried out several enquires just to satisfy form and did no more than draft a special report without filing charges, concluding that there was no criminal activity. They stuck by their conclusions even after the County State Attorney's Office submitted to the courts on its own initiative a request for an investigation on the basis of which an investigation was in the end launched into the Brodosplit case. Besides slowing and hindering the investigation, Mercep is also responsible for the far-reaching consequences of his cover-up of the Brodosplit scandal.

A few months ago information leaked to the public that, at the height of the scandal, the police, the SOA central intelligence agency and the State Attorney's Office knew of the intention of a participant in the scandal, Drago Macek, to turn state's evidence in the event he was remanded to police custody.

Had the police in Split then been in earnest and professional in carrying out their duties, the Brodosplit scandal would now be entirely resolved, and perhaps already seen its judicial epilogue. As it is the investigation is still ongoing, and by all accounts, will not be wrapped up by the end of this year, and the new head of the police department in Split, Josip Bukvic, will have to spend a part of his time at work cleaning up this and many other scandals Mercep kept in his drawers for years. Indicative of just how high the level of protection and covering up of crime and corruption were under Mercep's leadership is that Minister Karamarko has opted for a move that will most certainly not been received with approbation in Split - instead of replacing Mercep with another police officer from the Split police administration, he decided to send a man from Zagreb there, whom he gave strict instructions of what he expected from him.

His mission will be to put a stop to all of the collusion between local heavies and the police in Split that, according to some, was the chief characteristic of Mercep's term at the post. He was, besides, in recent years the subject of investigations carried out by internal control inspectors. Back in 2004 his travel orders were under investigation, and in 2006 a case in which Mercep's cops released a man from their custody who had been reported by his wife for domestic violence, whom he murdered after being released by the police. A number of anonymous letters received by the press from Split from time to time always alleged his dubious accumulation of wealth, the hushed up case of his own domestic violence, and in November of last year at the Imotski Evening event the head of the Split police department even got into fisticuffs with a guest of the Sky restaurant atop the Joker shopping centre owned by entrepreneur Zeljko Kerum.

Besides sackings at the police administration in Split, as Nacional's sources point out, the next move by Tomislav Karamarko will be to clean up the situation in the police departments in Zadar and Osijek. Ever since being appointed in November 2004 to the top job at the Zadar police department, chief Anton Drazina cannot boast of a single major case of corruption and organised crime, a fact the General Police Directorate noticed a few months ago. As a result Drazina will allegedly be replaced in Zadar as early as by the end of February by a younger police officer, whose chief mission will be to reactivate the commercial crime department and launch major anti-corruption investigations in that city. Something similar is in line for Darinko Mikulic, the chief of police in Osijek. Besides for indolence, he is also accused of behaviour similar to Mercep's - not only has he failed to uncover crime, but he also, with the help of police officers close to him, covered up cases uncovered by others.

One of the most concrete examples of this practice was the Newsstand scandal of December 2008. Even though the police were aware as far back as in mid October of the facts concerning the sub-lease of land that the Osijek municipal transport company (GPP) had leased from the city, local politicians soon got involved in the case. As a result of the coalition strife in the municipal government at the time and preparations for local elections it suited local bigwigs that the entire scandal blow over and be covered up as quickly as possible, and the Osijek police were given the appropriate cue.
As a result they were very benevolent and filed charges for the most lenient qualification - concluding harmful contracts - against the suspected GPP director Darko Markovic and two Osijek businessmen, Ivica Dzalto and Vladimir Cajo. But Vladimir Faber, then Police General Director, who had direct experience leading the police department in Osijek, quickly grasped what was going on in Osijek, and sent two experienced commercial crime inspectors from Zagreb who in just a week's time broadened and strengthened the criminal charges to the level of abuse of office, which allowed the case to pass to county jurisdiction and the trio to be remanded to police detention.

Osijek chief Mikulic is directly accused also for the actions of the police in the investigation into alleged juvenile prostitution at an Osijek juvenile correctional facility. The police only got involved in the case after the press had reported about it for days and in the end filed charges against Osijek native Dragan Pocrnic for allegedly having disseminated false and disturbing information in the report he filed with the police.
The epilogue of the case was that Osijek County Court acquitted Pocrnic of the charges, while the Osijek police comported itself in an utterly unprofessional manner, allegedly because the scandal led to individuals in local government. The last person in the first phase of ousters is Zeljko Jurkovic, the head of the Lika-Senj County police administration.

ANTON DRAZINA The head of the Zadar police (left) will be sacked because of his inactivity in rooting out corruption And while there are no major companies in his region, and there can objectively not be major cases of corruption, Jurkovic is considered to be the protector of local politicians, as a result of which the work of lower-ranking police officers in the entire jurisdiction is hampered. The Police General Directorate was very antagonised by chief Jurkovic's decision of September of last year to appoint his former spokesman Jozo Milas as his deputy. The problem was that it had in fact been Milas that had disclosed to the public the full identity of raped American basketball player Illisha Jarret, while the identity of the attacker, Joso Mraovic, was protected, citing only his initials, an unheard of practice in police procedure. The Croatian public condemned Milas' comportment, and the Interior Ministry's disciplinary tribunal gave him a probationary sentence of a cessation of employment for a period of one year.

After that epilogue few expected Milas to stay on at his post, while chief Jurkovic made an even more bizarre decision - to promote him to the post of his deputy. All of the sackings foreseen in the various police administration units across Croatia should be wrapped up by mid march, as Minister Karamarko has been given the green light by Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor to entirely cleanse the Croatian police of the crime and corruption that was a hallmark of the Sanader reign, and has in fact always been a big problem that no one has succeeded in completely resolving.

Nevertheless, the work of the police and of the State Attorney's Office over the past few months has revived some optimism that by halfway through this year the Croatian police could finally and truly be cleansed of any kind of political influence.