Dangerous Minds

"The vanity of President Slobodan Milosevic is the best guarded value of the regime", lawyers Slavka Srdic-Jankovic, Nikola Barovic and Milan Vukovic said to explain what happened to their client Dejan Bulatovic (21) form Sid.

Bulatovic took part in December 5 demonstrations and held an effigy of Slobodan Milosevic in prison uniform for a short time. Later he headed for the Saborna church.

"Bulatovic was thrown to the ground by a blow from behind across the street from the church. He was then carried into a building entrance and beaten senseless. The policemen who beat him told him this was happening because he held the doll of Milosevic. Some passersby tried to help him but didn’t dare do anything when the seven men who were beating him said they were police," Barovic said.

Bulatovic asked where they were taking him and he was told: "To Goli Otok (the former Yugoslavia’s equivalent of the Soviet Gulag under Tito)," Srdic-Jankovic said.

Bulatovic was held in the police for over 24 hours. His lawyers said he confirmed everything they were told by prisoners released on December 6 and his mother. he was beaten constantly; undressed in an unheated room with the windows open and beaten; a baton was pushed into his anus and a rifle barrel into his mouth.

"Bulatovic said he was taken to judge Dobrivoje Glavonic in bad condition; his wounds were fresh and he was bleeding. When he entered the room the judge smiled and said: "What happened, you slipped on a banana peel?" We’ll file charges against the judge for not taken appropriate measures to protect Bulatovic’s health and for interrogating him in that condition," Vukovic said.

Glavonic sentenced Bulatovic to 25 days in jail for a violation of the Serbian public order law. His ruling said Bulatovic confessed to stopping traffic during the demonstrations by opening their doors and asking drivers for a light to ignite firecrackers. He also confessed to telling a traffic policeman that he was from the SPO and that he would regulate traffic and having a fierce verbal clash with a driver. "He was very arrogant and impolite to the drivers and authorized personnel on duty and hampered traffic," the ruling said. That’s why he’s in jail in Padinska Skela with bruises on his face, a swollen nose, a bruise on his neck.

The Milosevic puppet wasn’t mentioned. The weakness of that argument and the hiding behind the public order law is shown by the appeal by defense lawyers. They’re calling for the overruling of the sentence because of an incomplete and irregularly conducted procedure and harsh violations of legal procedure. The defense lawyers added that there isn’t any information about the people Bulatovic allegedly stopped and harassed - none of the drivers were questioned. The sentence is based on his confession which his lawyers say was made under pressure. Their proof are medical documents made by doctors who examined Bulatovic in prison and the Belgrade clinical center.

They said there were no grounds to detain him because he wasn’t arrested when the alleged misdemeanor took place. The police kept Bulatovic in detention for over 24 hours although the detention records say he was held from 20:00 hours on December 5 to 20:00 hours on December 6. The records add that he was arrested at 18:30 hours.

Bulatovic’s express request for a defense lawyer was refused by the judge in violation of the FRY constitution and defense lawyers weren’t allowed to talk freely to their client. With a prison official present, Bulatovic told his lawyers he was afraid to tell them everything. The lawyers say his fears are founded and proved it with a report from their client which he handed to them on December 10. A comparison with something he wrote in front of them shows that the two were written by different people.

"People sentenced for throwing eggs were not mistreated," Srdic-Jankovic said. "The moment the president’s vanity was touched they resorted to torture. They want to prove that anything goes from egg throwing to people dying but the image of the president can’t be touched. That was the order the police followed. Because of the regime’s obvious stand on this form of expressing dissatisfaction, the demonstration organizers stopped bringing out the puppet of Milosevic because they don’t want to see anyone go through what Bulatovic has been through."