Separating the Wheat from the Shaft

The evidential procedure during two days (September 16 and 17) passed in testimonies given by the former director of the Directorate of Commodity Reserves of Serbia Zivojin Matic (46), an organization engineer, and the former minister of agriculture Ivko Djonovic. Matic was an incredibly interesting witness obviously not accustomed to interrogation. With his hands crossed over his chest and widely set apart legs he self-confidently and immediately stated that no one, neither the judge, nor the lawyers, nor the public are allowed to interrupt him while he is talking. "I don't understand what this is all about and have two remarks: firstly because that person (pointing his finger at Djindjic, author's note) suggested me as a witness, whom I don't know at all and because of that I am deeply hurt as a person. Secondly, why do we need all of this? Instead of only calling the defendants who don't have evidence for what they had claimed, that is that the Prime Minister had put 200.000 German Marks into his pocket, and to immediately reach a verdict, we have here a totally unnecessary trial," said the former director, stating his opinion in an incredibly arrogant way, while a largish gold ring was gleaming on his finger. As nobody took his efforts to convince the court of the futility of such a trial seriously, Matic said almost nothing of importance in the many hours-long interrogation.

Judging by the answers of Zivojin Matic, it was evident that he did not know much about what was going on in the Directorate..., therefore reducing his answers mostly to "I really don't remember", "ask the Serbian government", "ask the UN", "I have already expressed my stand", "don't expect me to be a computer". The highlight was definitely his following answer "Do you honestly think I'm from Mars," only to finally slightly threaten everybody: "Let me tell you, I am a personal friend of Miki Marjanovic and I'll tell him everything". All in all, his testimony didn't help anyone, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant, but was rather conducive to the government of Serbia "which had remained clean in all things to the very end" claimed Matic.

With the witness Ivko Djonovic, minister of agriculture in the government of Serbia from March 1994 until May 1996, things stood very differently. Calm and persistent in the course of the almost six-hour-long interrogation, he explained what happened with the wheat in detail. Of the controversial one million tons of corn he said "That some of it was eaten while the rest was illegally exported by many companies during the sanctions". It is interesting to note that the former minister had often traveled to Moscow with regards to the export of wheat but in front of the court he "didn't know" which company Progres had made a deal with for the export of wheat. The answer to that question was evaded by both witnesses. However, Z. Djindjic explained: "If Mr. Marjanovic was to appear at the trial we could question him on the dealings of his Russian partner. The Democratic Party is in possession of certain facts concerning Prime Minister Marjanovic's business contacts with Progres Gas Trading from Russia. That is the very same company which the Yugoslav government had appointed to construct a gas pipeline for Serbia from the Yugoslav side with the Russian partner. We actually have a document which shows that it is a totally private company under the control of our government. There are indications that one man, by which I mean Marjanovic, appears as both the director of one and a co-founder of the other company and as a partner of a foreign company and as an interested party in that foreign company and that most probably M. Marjanovic is the owner of one part of the shares" said Djindjic.

In the closing speech the defence attorney and authorized representative of M. Marjanovic have remained consistent to their charges suggesting that the accused be pronounced guilty and sentenced in accordance with the law. "We were supposed to ascertain whether Mirko Marjanovic had taken 200 million German Marks here and put them in his pocket, as the announcement of the Democratic Party had stated. That wasn't even tried to be proven here," concluded the Prime Minister's authorized representative.

The defence stated their surprise that the Prime Minister M. Marjanovic didn't deem it necessary to appear in front of the court and explain many things. The lawyers believe that the suggestion for legal assessment should not have been rejected by the court since the fate of the wheat could only have been ascertained by surveying the documents in the Serbian government. Without looking into the books this court shall only deal with the announcement of the Democratic Party and words that the Prime Minister had "gained", "taken", "collected", "made a profit", "got hold of" and only on the basis of that, without delving into the essence of it, make a decision. Defence lawyers of the accused stressed that a prime minister of a government cannot at the same time be a director of a company and that as long as such an anomaly isn't stopped in court such proceedings shall take place. Chances are that we are more and more entering into the sphere of the notorious delict of opinion which was deleted from the Penal Law a long time ago.