A TRUSTED MAN Ivo Sanader on the island of Hvar in 2007 with his bodyguard Davor Blazevic Tigar, with whom he became close during his term in officeFormer Prime Minister Ivo Sanader can still at any moment learn the most sensitive information available to the Croatian security system, Nacional has learned from several high-ranking sources in the know when it comes to security issues. And while he has been completely politically humiliated, disenfranchised and marginalised, Sanader is still not cut off from the most sensitive information, because what are held to be Sanader's people still hold key posts in the Croatian security system. High-ranking sources well informed on security issues have told Nacional that these people acquired their posts above all because Sanader either recommended them or approved their appointments. In security circles this was seen even during Sanader's term in office as a clear sign that they are people of Sanader's outmost confidence. Some of them continue to communicate with him to this day, and some built an almost intimate friendship with the former Prime Minister, full of mutual respect.

High-ranking sources from the security system have told Nacional that Davor Blazevic, aka Tigar, the head of the special security operations department at the Interior Ministry, Colonel Dinko Majic, the director of the telecommunications monitoring operations and technical centre, Petar Misevic, the director of the National Security Council office, Frane Tomicic, one of the heads of the military security and intelligence agency, and several other high-ranking and, it appears, untouchable officials within the security and intelligence agency, including Josip Jurcevic and Denis Gudelj, are numbered among these people.

Davor Blazevic Tigar was for many years the personal bodyguard to Ivo Sanader, and it was not long before Sanader's surprise departure from high politics that he was promoted to the post of head of the special security operations department at the Interior Ministry. Most of the talk about Blazevic among those involved in security operations is approbatory. His heroic comportment in the war is emphasised, honesty, accessibility, geniality, and his great loyalty towards former Prime Minister Sanader, with whom he has built a friendship over the years. Some of these people say that this does not necessarily also define Blazevic as a spotless professional, and that he was promoted suddenly, and overnight literally bypassed several promotional steps within the Interior Ministry. They say that the key role in this regard was in fact played by Sanader, and not by Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko, who unnecessarily ran afoul of President Ivo Josipovic on the issue at the start of his term in office.

It was just a few days after winning the presidential elections that Josipovic had his first confrontation with the Jadranka Kosor administration, and it was over Karamarko's lack of tact in connection with the security detail the new Croatian President was required to have. It was Karamarko's judgement that the police should decide independently what persons would protect Josipovic. Josipovic did not agree, and subsequently backed down partially. Among other things, Josipovic did not trust Blazevic and wanted to pick his own bodyguards. For the country it is a very important issue, and the people who protect the Croatian President must be not only professional, but also people who will enjoy his trust. The issue of personal trust does not have to be crucial in countries with well-established and long democratic traditions, but even in those countries the issue of the president's personal confidence in his bodyguards is sometimes taken into account.

The special security operations department at the Interior Ministry is authorised to provide the security for President Josipovic, and for other protected persons in Croatia. Sources close to Government confirmed for Nacional that the situation at the special security operations department has for years been, to say the least, inappropriate, as the members of the security details of the top officials in the country as a rule become overly intimate with them, and end up believing that they answer to no one but the person they are assigned to protect. And the relationships between the members of the security details and the protected persons often takes on a sort of personal friendship, which also does not lend itself to a professional approach to the job. This is something Karamarko recently decided to change, and he has charged Davor Blazevic aka Tiger with the hands on part of seeing these changes through. It is very much open to discussion just how much he can be the person to create a new professional system, as he himself for years found his footing very well in a highly politicised milieu.

At the job Blazevic carries out he has daily access to detailed information about where and very likely with whom the officials who have the status of protected persons meet. Blazevic has a good overview of what goes on in the diplomatic community in Croatia. All of this information can at a given moment be very useful, and be used to various ends.
As director of the Operational Technology Centre for the Surveillance of Telecommunications (OTC), Colonel Dinko Majic administers the measures of covert monitoring of telecommunications services. Majic is at the helm of the body that activates, manages and monitors all eavesdropping conducted by authorised national institutions. The services of the OTC are used by the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA), the Military Security and Intelligence Agency (VSOA), the police and by USKOK (The Bureau for the Prevention of Corruption and Organized Crime). There is no need to point out how sensitive the information provided by the OTC is. Those in the know claim that Sanader frequently asked Majic if he was being eavesdropped on. Majic caught the spotlight a few months ago when he requested that the anonymity of prepaid service users in mobile networks be taken away. He demanded that the three mobile telephony operators must register all prepaid users in mobile networks - with about 4.5 million SIM cards they make up 80 percent of the market in Croatia - and that this information be made available to the OTC.

Frane Tomicic, a top official in the military security agencyThe registration of prepaid users was to have been carried out with the rationale that terrorists and criminals can hide behind anonymous prepaid SIM cards. Most of the public at large saw it as an attempt by the Croatian secret services to increase control over citizens, violating their human rights. But the Majic initiative did not even have the full support of the entire intelligence community. Some members of the community say that the numbers used by criminals and other persons who represent a security risk can be determined without a registry, and that it only requires a little more work. By then there were already rumours that Majic had acquired the post as a person of Sanader's outmost confidence and that he launched the controversial initiative with the aim of changing this impression and at least in principle currying favour with Prime Minister Kosor.

Petar Misevic, head of the National Security Council office, is also cited as a person of Sanader's particular confidence. Misevic's office carries out expert and administrative tasks for the National Security Council and for the Security & Intelligence Agencies Coordination Council, and carries out assignments that allows the National Security Council to analyse the reports of the security and intelligence agencies, and cooperates with the security and intelligence agencies at the request of the President and Prime Minister in drafting strategy evaluations and security evaluations key to the country's national security. In other words, Misevic is, as the top man in the office, in direct contact with the most sensitive security information and reports. Frane Tomicic is one of the heads of the Military Security & Intelligence Agency, responsible for the intelligence department. Through the job he does Tomicic has access to the most sensitive military security information. The claim is that Mario Zubovic, a close friend of Sanader's, was the one who recommended Tomicic for the job a little over two years ago. Tomicic was appointed to the post by the top people at Armed Forces Supreme Command and the Ministry of Defence, without the approval of then director of the VSOA, the late Gordan Cacic. During the Homeland War Tomicic was Mirko Norac's deputy in the 9th Guards Brigade, and was considered up to 2000 to be Davor Domazet's chief personnel man. Tomicic was recently mentioned after Rahim Ademi was acquitted by the Supreme Court of all charges for crimes in the Medak Pocket. It was not long afterwards that Ademi announced he would file charges against several military officials whom, he is convinced, gave false testimony in attempt to accuse him of the crimes. Tomicic is one of those whom it is said Ademi will charge with perjury. Ademi suspects him of deliberately given false testimony so that Ademi and not those actually responsible would be convicted for the crimes in the Medak Pocket. In 2007 Tomicic, Zvonko Brajkovic and Svetko Sare gave testimony that was not in Ademi's favour, but the statements were allegedly completely the opposite of what the trio had told the Zagreb police department in 2001 when it was working on the case.

Josip Jurcevic and Denis Gudelj, who work at the SOA, are also mentioned as Sanader's people in the security system. Jurcevic is considered one of the chief human resources figures, and Gudelj is the head of the SOA base in Split. The two are allegedly not the only remaining Sanader people in the agency, which is run by Josip Buljevic. Buljevic is considered by many relevant people to be a professional, but they often point out that he does not have full control of what goes on within the SOA, which is especially true of some staff of right-wing political tendencies. Some of these people saw their rise during the catastrophic term Josko Podbevsek, an inept hopeful pushed by Speaker of Parliament Luka Bebic and Sanader, had at the helm of the agency. Podbevsek not only ruined the SOA, he also surrounded himself with questionable people his successors are unable or unwilling to shed themselves of. Now there are suspicions that these people continue to contact Sanader and that they are becoming a security threat and an additional challenge to SOA director Josip Buljevic.

MARIO ZUBOVIC (left), Sanader's colleague and close friend, is allegedly responsible for getting Frane Tomicic appointed to the top job at the intelligence department of the Military Security & Intelligence AgencySome security system officials have told Nacional that they find it hard to believe that these people would be willing to risk so much by staying in contact with Sanader now that he is facing possible criminal persecution and has been completely politically marginalised. But these sources from the security system do not question the fact that "Sanader's people" could not have turned into flawless professionals overnight, however much some cabinet ministers wish to believe so. They are still largely considered potential Sanader "sleepers" and useful informants, and on the other hand as a reflection of the inability of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor to complete her showdown with Sanader.