Former justice minister jailed
Vladan Batic, the leader of the Democratic Christian Party and Serbia’s justice minister in the Djindjic and Zivkovic governments was taken into custody by police last night.
Batic was summonsed yesterday afternoon for questioning in connection with the suspicion that, on June 7, 2003, as justice minister he released Nenad Jovanovic, a member of the Jotkine crime group, from prison. Batic responded to the summons and insisted that he be given a polygraph test, which was done, B92 has learnt. Four hours later the former justice minister was told that he would be held in custody.
Batic’s lawyer, Ante Boskovic, said today that Batic was remanded in custody for 48 hours at 11.30 last night and lodged an appeal against this at 1.00 a.m. today. Under the law the appeal should have been heard within four hours by Nadezda Mijatovic, the duty magistrate in the District Court. He will be examined today in the Palace of Justice.
Boskovic told media that there is no evidence on which to arrest his client except the official records of the prison administration and that Batic had sought a polygraph examination which he was later informed he had failed.
“Polygraph examination isn’t any kind of evidence,” said the lawyer.
“Kostunica, Milosevic, two sides of one coin”
A senior official of Batic’s Democratic Christian Party, former Belgrade mayor Milan St Protic, described the arrest as having a clear political motivation and followed Batic’s serious public allegations of corruption and crime by officials of the present authorities. Protic says that arrests and persecution of political opponents shows the state Serbia is in.
“We had naively thought that these times had passed but, unfortunately, Kostunica’s regime and he himself have fallen so low that they’re abusing the police in this way and persecuting people with different opinions who don’t agree with the governing regime. What makes it even worse, the justice minister several days ago even foreshadowed this, so it’s yet another confirmation that the executive government is pulling all the strings and doing whatever it likes, and that has led to the arrest of Vladan Batic,” said Protic.
He added that the charges against Batic, apart from having no basis in law, are of such a trivial nature that it is clear that there is a political motive for them.
“We’ll see what their next steps will be, and for us this is an additional motive to continue the political struggle and we’re certain that Batic will be with us again and that we’ll then use all the resources at our disposal to fight with Kostunica’s regime in the same way or worse as we did with the Milosevic regime. It’s a tragedy for Serbia that Kostunica has succeeded Milosevic, because it can now be seen that they’re two sides of the same coin,” said St Protic.
The Democratic Christian Party in a statement said that “Vojislav Kostunica’s private police, on the basis of lies by Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic, last night called party president Vladan Batic for questioning.”
“The real reason for the detention of Batic is revenge, because he is the only person who has told the public about the dirty tricks, theft and criminal behaviour in the government of Vojislav Kostunica, from the director of the state television, through the finance minister, to the justice minister and the Kostunica Cabinet. The evidence that this is about a classic case of discrediting Batic is that Police Minister Dragan Jocic first told journalists from Kurir to publish the news that Batic had been arrested on their front page but not until three hours later did he tell the chief of the Organised Crime Division to inform Batic that he would be remanded in custody. Batic began a hunger strike immediately and further details will be release at 2.00 p.m. in a Democratic Christian Party press conference,” said the party.
Batic’s name in transcripts
Vecernje Novosti claims that Batic’s name occurs a number of times in connection with Nenad Jovanovic during the investigation for bribery of Supreme Court judge Ljubomir Vuckovic. The Belgrade daily claims that the fugitive Jovanovic’s name occurs several times in the surveillance transcripts of conversations between Vuckovic and Zoran Jotic.
In the police white paper on organised criminal groups in Serbia in 2001, Jovanovic, a former official of the Yugoslav Left and a federal MP, founded with Jotic a firm for the manufacture of cement bags and together with a partner coerced the director of a cement works to buy the bags. Jovanovic is mentioned in the white paper exclusively in connection with business crime. He was reported to have close ties to Yugoslav Left director Mirjana Markovic (wife of Slobodan Milosevic) and other figures from the state leadership and to have held positions in all state organs.
Stojkovic “read it in the papers
The current justice minister, Zoran Stojkovic, said today that he had learnt about the arrest of his predecessor from the press and had no other information.
Stojkovic declined to respond when reminded by journalists that he had recently made allegations about Batic in the media.
“Settling political scores“
Former prime Minster Zoran Zivkovic said that he believed Batic was being held in prison to settle political scores and to demonise the former justice minister and the government in which he served.
“The arrest of Batic is political revenge because in recent days he has loudly criticised the present government, especially in connection with the National Savings Bank and had been strongly critical of the work of the present minister for justice,” said Zivkovic.
(B-92) |
