Silence of the Penguins

On Wednesday 27 April, a young man by the name of Mija Medak was brought to the Emergency Center with a dangerous bullet wound in the stomach. The operation was complicated and took a long time and Medak barely pulled through. Since the patient was brought over by a member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard, and Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan was personally concerned about the patient's state, the staff were convinced that Medak was one of Arkan's men. When he came to, some of the staff asked him if he could help them solve their housing problems. They listened to Medak in disbelief as he told them that he didn't know Raznatovic. It was learned the next day that Medak was just the driver in Radio Penguin, a local radio station owned by Giovanni Di Stefano, a local businessman and Raznatovic's good friend.

The event took place in the rooms of the Housing Society "Sumadija" (Di Stefano's firm) and according to eye witness reports, a certain Dule found a pistol in an unlocked drawer and started playing around with it. A brief police report issued later gives the time and place of the incident and the view of the investigative organs that it was probably an accident. Had the matter remained at this, it would have faded away in a mass of similar items found in the Crime Columns of the daily papers.

But for most of the staff at Radio Penguin, Medak's wounding was the straw that broke the camel's back: the next day 52 of a total of 75 permanent and temporary employees resigned in protest. In a statement which they signed, the employees said that they were disgusted with the boorish behavior of Di Stefano and his bodyguards, and that similar incidents had happened earlier, and that since he had inherited Radio Penguin after the murder of his friend Radojica Nikcevic, Di Stefano's "editorial and business policies were disastrous". The radio management said that it was the "right of all employees to be unhappy with the editorial policy of the house they were working for", and that the program "albeit changed, was being broadcast". By this time Di Stefano had already left the country and acting editor-in-chief Slobodan Cagic spoke in his name.

All agree that the incident in "Sumadija" was the immediate cause of the resignations: most of those who until last week had worked for Radio Penguin are under thirty, and many of them joined the new radio station full of enthusiasm four years ago, so they found it hard to sit and watch as Nikcevic's successor destroyed all they had created. They said that Di Stefano used to call and interrupt regular programs, he would telephone abroad making enormous telephone bills and then accuse the staff and deduct the money from their salaries; he insisted that Radio Penguin get involved in the Party of Serbian Unity election campaign even though this radio station does not broadcast political information; he brought in various suspicious-looking characters and violated the music concept (pop and rock) insisting on Ceca Velickovic (Mrs. Raznatovic) and other folk singers. All this was reflected on Radio Penguin's listening rates. From being one of the most popular radio stations in town, it plummeted down disastrously in recent months.

When it seemed that the whole affair was going to be forgotten, Giovanni Di Stefano called and agreed to give an exclusive interview to VREME. We never got the number of Di Stefano's mobile telephone, but VREME's reporter had the opportunity of conducting the interview from Radio Penguin offices in the Sports Center "11 April" in Bezanijska Kosa, in the presence of the secretary and an interesting thickset gentleman who introduced himself as the Reverend Richard Page, Di Stefano's advisor and longtime friend.

Di Stefano said that he had gone to Italy in order to help with Silvio Berlusconi's election campaign, his compatriot and colleague who was having trouble hanging on to the prime ministership in the last few months. "For fifty years the collective system ruled in this country, and many have the psychology of sheep. That's how it came about that a group of dissatisfied and desperate individuals took advantage of an accident to drag along after them many others. But I hear that some have asked to return, and they will probably be allowed to." Di Stefano doesn't have anything nice to say about his former employees. "They were surplus", he said. He said that the reasons for their departure lie in the fact that they were used to chaos and foul deals in Communism, and that they started thinking of resigning only when it became obvious that they might be discovered. "A few months ago I asked the Reverend Page to come over, he's an expert for such problems, and he discovered some very interesting things. These people lied, tricked and pilfered", said Di Stefano, adding that he was sorry that so many employees had left. "When it comes to resignations and dismissals, it's always the fault of the management which didn't manage to find a common language with the employees." He won't sue anybody for alleged embezzlement - on the contrary, he's prepared to write recommendations for new jobs for all them. "I know how to forgive", he said. He'll also forgive the Sumadija security guard who left a pistol with a bullet in an unlocked drawer. "If the authorities have no intention of prosecuting him, then I won't either. The most important thing is that the program is broadcast, with these wonderful young people who have remained."

For the time being the authorities show no intention of undertaking anything: even eight days after the shooting, the Belgrade Police have not issued an official statement on whether an investigation is being conducted, and against how many persons. Di Stefano was not asked to make a statement. "The inspector said that the holidays were starting and that statements would be taken later", said the secretary.

If Mija Medak hadn't survived the bullet, many would have been in trouble: it is difficult to hide a murder, especially if it isn't the first time. Too many of Raznatovic's friends and associates are in jail for serious crimes, and the last thing he needs is another one. And as far as Di Stefano is concerned, this would be the second time that someone is shot in "Sumadija", so that somebody might get seriously angry and start checking through his business deals, especially those linked to Colombia - and who knows where that would end. This way, all can relax: there was no death, and the whole case can be filed under accident. Even Dule, who is probably lying low in his native Bosnia, will soon be able to return to his old job. Until the next occasion.

Frame

Giovanni and Friends

Giovanni Di Stefano, a businessman born in a village near Pescara (Italy) appeared in Belgrade in October 1992 and received Yugoslav citizenship immediately. He likes to show his Yugoslav passport in which it says that he lives in Tolstojeva St. 31, right next to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's residence. In fact, Di Stefano lives in the Genex apartments across Hyatt Hotel.

In his first public appearances on Radio-television Serbia (as a guest of journalist Vesna Jugovic), Di Stefano claimed that he was the co-owner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the film production house Sandhurst Assets Incorporated, that he was worth over half a billion dollars and that he intended to move Hollywood to the Balkans. In the event that sanctions weren't lifted he threatened to withdraw his capital from America and thus ruin its economy. He never went through with his threat, probably because the story of his MGM ownership is a bit more complicated. Namely, it is true that Di Stefano was an associate of Giancarlo Paretti, an Italian magnate who was involved in a series of financial scams in the Eighties. Among others, Paretti and company received a very big loan from the French bank Credit Lyonnaise and tried to buy MGM. The transaction was stopped and the bank nearly went bankrupt. Paretti ended up in jail, while Di Stefano made it to Serbia. Here he soon found new friends, first Misa Culafic, a Serbian-Swedish businessman and then Radojica Nikcevic, the majority stockholder of Radio Penguin and the Housing Society "Sumadija", a little later he became very close with pastry shop owner, commander of the Serbian Volunteer Guard and public worker Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan.

The friendship with Nikcevic came to an abrupt end on 7 October 1993 when an unknown killer killed Nikcevic with a bullet in the head on the parking lot in front of "Sumadija". The murder weapon and the killer's car were found close to the scene of the crime. The crime took place a short while after Di Stefano and Nikcevic returned from a visit to Bogota, capital of Colombia, which triggered off stories of links with the Colombian cocaine cartel. This is something that Di Stefano has always denied vehemently. He still keeps Nikcevic's photograph on his table and speaks warmly of him.

Three months after his partner's death Di Stefano inherited all Nikcevic's businesses, which isn't altogether clear since the dead man did have a family even though he didn't leave a testament. After this Di Stefano established himself as one of the more colorful figures of the Belgrade milieu. He often gave interviews in which bombastic statements abounded, praised Milosevic, Arkan and Serbia to the skies; paid the cost of Raznatovic's wedding which according to some sources reached 300,000 DEM and took part in sponsoring Marko Milosevic's (the President's son) racing ventures. Di Stefano ran into his first problems with the authorities in April last year: he was locked up for ten days for pegging the foreign currency rate and let out on enormous bail, after which he was completely cleared of all charges. His attempts at founding a Canadian-Yugoslav and Italian-Yugoslav air company ended disastrously: JAT and the Ministry of Transport refused to issue permission.

Asked if all the dust kicked up around Radio Penguin was a start to another round of problems with the authorities, Di Stefano disagreed emphatically. "I have no enemies and I pay taxes regularly," he said. "I'm only scared of spiders and dogs."