State Security Stands Behind My Father's Murder

Despite a full year having passed since the shooting in Belgrade’s Intercontinental Hotel and the murder of the former Commander of the Serbian Volunteer Guard, Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, businessman Milenko Mandic and Dragan Garic, an Inspector with the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, and despite multiple daylong trials held against the accused, not a single important fact has come to light which could have significant bearing on the final outcome.  No progress has been made despite 588 pages of testimony from nine accused, given before the investigating judge, as well as testimony given by five individuals before a Committee on Crime, fitting onto 180 pages.  And all of this still does not include the testimony of witnesses who have yet to be heard.  The progress of the trial thus far clearly indicates that there is no hard evidence to prove that the accused committed the crimes they are indicted for, nor that there is any indication for a motive for the multiple murders.  Dobrosav Gavric (25), a.k.a. Dule, a policeman under suspension, Milan Djuricic, a.k.a. Miki (29), businessman, Dragan Nikolic (34), a.k.a. Gagi (on the loose) and Zoran Nikolic (41), a.k.a. Iron, are all accused of being “accomplices in the murder” and have denied taking part in the shooting or in being connected in any way with the liquidation.  None of the numerous witnesses who have been heard “saw anything,” having thrown themselves on the ground as soon as the shooting began, so that later they could not identify anyone or say anything which could lead to the establishment of the truth.  Only during the investigation, Zoran Mateovic supposedly stated that he saw Dobrosav Gavric shooting at Mandic and Garic.  That is why he used his gun, aiming at Gavric, whom he shot in the back.  Gavric managed somehow to drag himself to the entrance to the hotel, where he was met by his friends (accused as accomplices), who drove him to a hospital in Loznica.  However, when outside of court, Mateovic was given his statement made during the investigation, he was very surprised by the content of the text.  “This is complete rubbish and complete nonsense which I never stated, nor could anyone with any brains say anything of this sort.  For instance, it is stated that I and Gavric faced each other at a close distance and shot each other.  How come neither of us was wounded on that occasion,” stated Mateovic, who is the legal representative for the Raznatovic Family.  Gavric defended himself with the claim that he had a meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel with his friends, but that when shooting began, he tried to go out of the hotel, but “some foot shot me in the back.”  Otherwise, Mateovic will be present for the continuation of the trial on January 25 and will be heard as a witness at that time.

TRIAL BACKGROUND:  To put it mildly, the trial has been strange since the very beginning: lawyers for the accused did not pose any questions; the judge spent most of the trial time on insignificant witnesses and, for instance, refused the suggestion by Prosecutor Nebojsa  Maras that Dobrosav Gavric be shown the photograph which shows Gavric together with Milan Djuricic and Dragan Nikolic.  The photograph was taken the day before the murder and was significant, according to lawyers, for comparison of clothes they wore at the time and at the time of the shooting.  All in all, there was an impression that the trial was unfolding according to a set scenario.  “That seems to have been the idea,” states Mihajlo Raznatovic (25), Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan’s oldest son, “for the first four to get stiff sentences, while the others got milder ones.  And during the investigation for there never to be any mention of who stands behind the murder.  I am a man who does not deal with crime and I want to know why my father was killed, the person I loved most in this world.  The main objective is to get at the truth, because it is completely clear to me that a segment of the state security and the top of the former government stand behind my father’s murder.  I would say the two Markovic’s.  It was not difficult for them to mount a trial in which everything, from the lawyers to the judges is fixed.  This means everyone who is still loyal to the now former government.”  Zeljko Raznatovic’s sun explains the motive for the murder: “Everyone felt that changes are inevitable in Serbia and that my father, as always, would side with the people.  Of course, the fear of individuals, above all the Chief of State Security, Rade Markovic and the couple from Dedinje, was great because they knew the influence my father had on the police as a whole.  I am certain that police cordons would have listened to him without a comment if he ordered them to disband and to join the people.  No one should doubt this.  My father was untouchable.  The police respected him greatly.  Is it not indicative that on TV Palma Milosevic spoke only five to six seconds about the murder of the Minister of Defense, Pavle Bulatovic, while he spoke full three minutes about my father’s assassination: ‘had Arkan been alive, October 5 would never have happened’?  I am just as ready to believe this as the whole world is ready to believe that his son Marko earned 5000 dinars per month carrying crates of bottles, and that is how he amasses his wealth.”  President of the Serbian Unity Party, Borisav Pelevic, states even today that the CIA together with Shiptar terrorists killed Arkan, which sounds senseless.

“I did not hear a single piece of evidence supporting this claim,” states Raznatovic.  “Let him state and show anything which would support such a claim.  In any case, I don’t know that he is a professor.  I did not hear that he graduated anything, or got a doctorate anywhere.  It is worth checking into this so that people who voted for him know that there really is a professor in parliament.  In addition, my father never gave him the rank of general, as he claims.”

It is not quite clear why the murder took place at Intercontinental Hotel and not somewhere in the street, given that Arkan frequently walked in the street alone or with his wife Ceca, without any bodyguards.  Mihajlo Raznatovic explains: “Judging by all accounts, this was done so that unrest would be created and the appearance of a great conflict, after which the police would arrest anyone they pleased, only to take to court the small fry who would never dare admit who hired them to kill and for how much.  That entire police action was supposed to resound as a great success, which was intended to further conceal the people who ordered the multiple murders.  All those insignificant people, participants in the murder, were around us earlier; they were my father’s acquaintances.  But who paid them to this, and paid them very well, will have to come to light.  Only thirty minutes after the murder, we already knew that the assassins were Zoran Uskokovic Skole’s people.”

Mihajlo Raznatovic questions the veracity of police and court findings, as well as the correctness of the court procedure: “The municipal Service of Internal Affairs initially began the investigation at ‘Intercontinental’ very correctly, but for unexplained reasons the continuation and the completion of the investigation was given to another team.  Someone evidently activated a bomb in order to purposely create chaos and confusion in order to conceal the principal organizers of the murder and the one’s who commissioned it.  First of all, it is visibly clear that the sketch and the explanation of how the murders occurred simply do not correspond to the truth, that is to say that this is mere fraud.  There are far more bullet marks, for instance, than appear on the police sketch.  It seems that there was shooting on all sides, even though court experts say that there were only two guns.  The bullets extracted from my father’s head do not correspond to any of the found weapons.  It is incomprehensible that the police sketch does not include blood marks over a distance of twenty meters, which is the distance between where the victims were murdered and the entrance door to where Ceca, her sister and Zvonko Mateovic had brought my father.  And it is well known how much bleeding there is from a head wound made my three bullets.  Undoubtedly, someone erased the blood marks.  Someone who had that task.  For who could do something of that sort and who would profit by it?  Of course, only someone with high official clearance.  One witness claimed before the court that several meters outside the entrance door he saw a pool of blood, but the judge “forgot” to enter this detail into the minutes.  He did finally do it, but only at the insistence of a client in the trial.  It is also strange that the driver of the Special Police Unit refused to drive the critically injured Arkan to hospital, even though he was still giving signs of life.  Despite Ceca’s (tr. Arkan’s wife’s) insistence.  The driver’s Chief ordered the driver not to make a move.  And it was still not clear whether the wounded will survive.  The Police refused to help the man who was addressed by police generals as ‘commander’ and for whom they had plenty of respect.  Also interesting was the warning made by Ceca’s lawyer, Dragan Krgovic, who told us on one occasion, his face pale, that we should not ask the judge anything because the Chief of State Security, Rade Markovic, is keeping a close eye over the whole case and that everything will be o.k.  There is also the question who is the short, dark haired man with a metal badge, like a police badge, on the front of his belt.  With a gun in hand this man was shouting at the top of his voice that the police and ambulance should be called.  He was never identified even though several people present described him the same way.  In my opinion he was a ‘sweeper,’ someone in charge of removing markings and evidence.  It is also indicative that during the investigation Zoran Nikolic Pegla admitted the involvement of the State Security in the murders and that 4.5 million German marks were earmarked for the entire operation.  He withdrew before the court the statement he gave during interrogation.  Who could get that kind of money except individuals in the State Security.  Furthermore, it is worth asking who permitted Branko Jeftic Jorga, and important witness who was heard twice, to leave the country.  He was caught with false I.D. on the Yugoslav-Hungarian border.  However, he was released, with all signs of him gone.  Otherwise, shortly before the murder at ‘Interkontinental’ he offered to sell to my father an Audi A-8 parked in front.  He insisted that my father come out to see the vehicle, but cooled off when my father responded by saying: ‘I’m not rich enough to buy cheap things.’  I think that plan A was to get my father in front of the hotel, and that it fell through, so they had to go with a reserve plan for the murder, that is to say inside the hotel.”

WITNESS BEHIND BARS

Former Chief of a Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Loznica, Vojislav Jekic, called his colleagues in Belgrade several hours after the murder.  He told them very confidential information about the involvement of the State Security in the liquidation of Zeljko Raznatovic and other, Mihailo Raznatovic tells.  Jekic gave a statement to the Belgrade Police Department, but that document disappeared.  That is why he recorded his testimony on a video tape, with the idea of sending it to the Belgrade regional court when our judiciary becomes independent.  However, since a video tape is not admissible in court, Mihajlo Raznatovic and a legal representative of the injured families went to Bijeljine, where Jekic was in hiding for his own safety.  There they certified his written statement in court in the presence of Jekic and then submitted that statement to the prosecutor in Belgrade.  The Prosecutor suggested to the court, which the court accepted, that Jekic and Andreja Draskovic, who Jekic claims is a high official in the State Security, be called in before the court in the continuation of the trial, as witnesses in the trial of the nine accused of the crime at the Intercontinental Hotel.  Draskovic is presently in jail because he is indicted for a murder committed in the Belgrade night club, Knez.  Besides him, Jekic also claims that some police generals such as Dragan Ilic knew what was happening behind the scenes in the murder at Intercontinental Hotle.  It is interesting that Draskovic followed the wounded Dobrosav Gavric on the way from Belgrade to Sabac, Mihajlo Raznatovic tells us, and that he drove a car with rotating police lights.  “Let Draskovic explain in court how come he, a drug dealer, had a State Security badge,” Arkan’s friends demand.

FROM SWEDEN TO BELGRADE

Mihajlo Raznatovic returned to Belgrade some eight years ago in order to live with his father with whom he did not part company and with whom he participated in all the wars in the former Yugoslavia.  He lives in a rented one-bedroom apartment in the Dortiol district of Belgrade with his wife, a Belgrade woman, with whom he has a five month old daughter.  He rented a shop in Cumicevo Sokace where he sells cellular telephones.  “I came to live here and I have no intention of going back to Sweden where I grew up,” states Mihajlo Raznatovic.

MESSAGE

“Borisav Pelevic, President of the Serbian Unity Party carried a message for us from Rade Markovic,” Mihajlo Raznatovic tells, “which is: ‘Do not ask the accused in court anything, be calm and collected.  You have the green light to kill everyone connected with the murder of Arkan, but you must make sure that everything is clean, without fingerprints and without evidence.’  For me this was shocking.  I would never expect something like that from a professor, an intellectual,” Mihajlo Raznatovic concludes.