| Monsieur Subotik |
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Monsieur Subotik, as Stanko Subotic Cane was being addressed to in a Swiss hotel where we were interviewing him for Jutarnji list last Thursday afternoon, decided to speak out about the topics that, from the murder of Ivo Pukanic, have been the main preoccupations of Croatian and Serbian media. Subotic is a good looking fifty year old (born in 1959 near Ub in Serbia), rather well-off, one of the main European distributors of cigarettes and individual about whom has been written all the best and worst. Last time I saw him four years ago in Zagreb. Now he’s with less hair, with slightly more weight but no less controversial. He speaks steady and articulating. He doesn’t have difficulty in finding the appropriate words although he left Serbia in the middle of the seventies. He is making effort to persuade his interlocutor in the sincerity of what he’s saying, but I haven’t sensed a hidden verbal aggression in it, and the wish to convince the other that he’s right at all costs.He was simply dressed. White T-shirt, blue jacket and black loafers. Men and women with wealth screaming from them were sitting around us in the hotel bar. Clothing, jewelry, watches. I asked him rudely how “heavy” he was. He gave no response. In 2007 a Polish magazine listed him at the 95th place of the riches in the Eastern Europe. They claimed that his property was 600 million dollars worth. - According to the information published in the Croatian media, especially in Zagreb’s Nacional, and based on the alleged statement of a penitent in the investigation on assassination of Ivo Pukanić, you ordered liquidation of former owner of Nacional from Sreten Jocic, known as Joca Amsterdam. Is that true? - I have to admit that I am tired of denying the “alleged” facts from Nacional. Only in the court, I did it more than eighty times, and all verdicts were in my favour... - I am asking you directly because it is a question on which many would like to hear your straight answer ... ... Before asking me the question, you need to tell me what exactly this “straight answer” is. And will the pursuit against me be stopped when I clearly say that I know none of the people mentioned in that case. So, I couldn’t have been seening them or collaborating with them, and therefore I have no connection with the whole story. In the end, that is only continuation of a long process, which had started more than ten years ago, during which I was, first of all, the collateral victim of attempts of political opponents of Zoran Djindjic and Milo Djukanovic to discredit them and accuse of crime, smuggling, and now even of murder. - Who orderer of the murder then? Is it clearl enough if I say that behind the murder of Pukanic more likely stand those for whom he did the dirty jobs? And of whom he knew everything, more than anyone else. And people who started and designed the campaign against me, Djindjic and Djukanovic, are now sitting in Belgrade. And I think that they should be asked this very question: did they know Pukanić, had they been working with him, whether they knew and worked with various criminals ... I think there’s so much to what these people should give answer. - Let's go back to 2001. For what reason late Pukanić wrote about you? Pukanić was a mere executant, a pion, obused with no regrets by those for whom he was working. This was the reason I sued him. At one time, we shoud have faced eachother before court in Zagreb. He didn’t appear. I didn’t mind it because I got satisfaction through the court verdicts. And, as far as I’m concerned, this was the way in which I ended my business with this gentleman, the doer of others’ instructions. - Are you addressing the Serbian politicians? Culprits for what has been happening to me for more than ten years of persecution to which my family and I have been exposed to, I’ve never searched in Nacional. I was looking for them where they actually sat, where they designed, organized and executed their crimes, of which only one was the assassination of Zoran Djindjic, in which, through the provision of logistical support and political legitimacy to the murderers, they also participated. These people are perpetrators. And they are in Belgrade. - Who are these people? These are the people of Montenegrin origin who have real power in Serbia and that brought to power the former Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. They formed their network, placed their people to key positions in the police and judiciary, and thus exercized a real terror. They are inventing mafia, crime and scandals. They keep Serbia blackmailed. In political terms they are the Serbian hegemonysts. Because of them Serbia has problems with all its neighbors. Furthermore, they are the ones who, with their policy, keep Serbia outside European integrations and disable the actual democratization of the society, while the surrounding states are becoming part of the advanced Western world. - What would be the motive of such a confrontation with you? In Nacional you were proclaimed the head of mafia in the Balkans. Was this a political or business argument? All of that together. But, since we are talking about the events that can be boiled down to the criminal context, we need to talk about these people I mentioned, which are real criminals. They invented the affair with tobacco. - How can you be so sure of what you speak? Here’s how, I’ll itemize events in chronological order. First, the tobacco affair was invented by the people from the cabinet of Vojislav Kostunica. They were in charge of the so-called “expert group”, or “expert unit”, as they named it. They were not the official institution of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. There are no decisions about their formation, their status, or tasks. This expert group has acted as a paragovernment body of the government of Vojislav Kostunica. - I’ll ask again about their names? In that body was Rade Bulatovic, who later became Chief of Security-Information Agency (Serbian equvalent for Croation SOA). Then there was the Head of Koštunica’s Cabinet Aleksandar Nikitovic, then Dragan Jočić, which later was appointed Head of the Police, and their media proponent, the director of the Serbian National Television Aleksandar Tijanic. This is, so to say, the key part of the team that created the tobacco affair. - With what goal? What did they want to achieve? I suppose that one of their goals was defined from the fact that they are all of Montenegrin origin. Therefore, they wish to rule over Montenegro from Belgrade. No less important is that then, through the tobacco affair, they wanted to weaken and vitiate now the late Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Milo Djukanovic. This was, in fact, their main intention, and I was the side victim in all of that. - Do you have any evidence for these claims? As early as 2001 I had information that something like that was about to happen. Now I have the evidence. - What evidence? Where from? Through my lawyers, I acquired the extensive documentation from the Italian prosecutor in Bari that should have been the crucial evidence that me and my companies were involved in smuggling of cigarettes in the territory of former Yugoslavia. This so-called evidence was obtained by Koštunica’s group of people that I mentioned earlier. - What is the evidence? The reports of money circulation from my companies’ accounts that were registered in Cyprus. These legal and financial transactions are in no connection whatsoever neither with Italy and the subject of investigation of Italian prosecution nor with the people suspected of smuggling in Bari. - Is there something more to it? It is interesting that the Italian translations were submitted of texts that had been published about me in Nacional. It is interesting that they were being translated and sent to Italy from Koštunica’s cabinet. The same documents were sent to the European Union, or more precisely, to the European Office for the Fight against Corruption. - However, isn’t it indicative that your name was mentioned next to the name of Milo Djukanovic in the indictment of the Italian prosecution in Bari for cigarette smuggling? I’ve been to Italy only as a tourist. I know none of the defendants, and none of them mentioned me in any context, and there is nothing that can compromise me in any way. - And what about the accounts on Cyprus? They are, as I have already told you, legal accounts of revenues from legal cigarette sales. They acquired them through the so-called international legal assistance when the Serbian government was trying to locate Miločević’s money. Within this action, and due to pure coincidence, as the surname of a director of one of my companies is Milosevic, but has no connection with the family of Slobodan Milosevic, the documents arrived in Belgrade from Cyprus from all accounts that have to do with Serbian citizens or Serbian owners of companies. This way they also got an insight into the operations of my businesses. Manipulation hasn’t stopped there. They connected these data with the writing of Nacional and Serbian newspapers and sent them to the Italian prosecutor with a conclusion that that money had been the result of money laundering from cigarette smuggling for Milo Đukanović and Zoran Djindjic. - From imports of cigarettes in Montenegro and Serbia? No. Not such accounts. This is the commerce of my company which had distribution rights from large cigarette manufacturers for certain areas. One of these areas is Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and so on. - Why were you, if the whole tobacco affair had been construed, held in in the Russian extradition custody for two months in April 2008? Because of Interpol’s red notice, rose at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, as a result of investigation within action under the code name “Mreža” (“Network”). This police action was the consequence of what had been construed in Kostunica’s cabinet and media writing. It should be said that the same action served mainly the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia, Dusan Mihajlovic, to blackmail me. - How did he blackmail you? He initiated this action in which I was one of the persons under investigation, and at the same time invited me to his office. - Was Milosevic’s son Marko concurrently under the investigation? Yes. A lot of people were, and one of them was Marko Milosevic. In short, all who worked with cigarettes were. - Were you selling cigarettes to Marko Milosevic? I hadn’t been working with any of those people who were under the investigation. And even so with Marko Milosevic. I was a distributor. I had a strict prohibition of the company for which I worked on any trade with people from Milosevic’s circle. - How could these companies know to whom you sold cigarettes? According to documents and accounts they received. They knew to whom I sold. - Let's go back to the Minister Mihajlovic. What exactly he wanted from you? Money? When he invited me to his cabinet, the police action “Mreža” was already in progress. First he began to speak about some nut-policeman, who wants to write a book about it, that he was leading the action. Then he took out a paper, Organigram, which showed that actually I was at the top of the organization, almost the chief of State Police and customs services. Except for Milosevic, below me were all the others who worked with cigarettes in that time. I told him it was all nonsense and that it must be clear to him. He said he understood. Then he began to question me about how my jobs were, how I was earning money. It was clear what he wanted, especially when he said that the investigation didn’t have to take such a course, and that I didn’t have to be so high on the list. “You can be at the top, middle or bottom”, and added that we would see eachother again. - And have you? We have met a few more times. Each time he took Organigram with him in which I was lower and lower positioned. As my importance in police documents diminished his appetite increased. His last offer was to remove me from the list. For all this that I’m saying I have evidence and witnesses. He brought to my house in Marbella, Spain, the former director of the company C-market (Serbian retail chain) Slobodan Radulovic, and documents according to which I should have paid 15 million euros for them to privatize the company. My avail from it would have been erasing me from the list of operation “Mreža”. I never answered him to that offer. In the meantime, Mihajlovic left the ministry and was replaced by Dragan Jočić, one of the people from the mentioned Koštunica’s expert team. Jočić received from Mihajlović all the documents concerning the police action “Mreža”. On the basis of it, the investigation was relaunched, but be careful, against an unknown perpetrator, or person. - Have you ever been officially invited to talk to the police? Never and not anyone called me to go to the police. The representatives were sent who were inquiring how much I would have paid if the whole thing woud be set. - Have you paid? I wasn’t ready to give money to save me from something that was a mere figment of Kostunica’s team. - But, the fact is that the Italian government asked all states where you have a registered company to carry out control of financial operations of the same? Of course. The Italians did so because of the tendentious information and manipulation they received from Serbia from Koštunica’s men. And what did they find? The French were studying the papers for two years. The Swiss almost four. The same was in Liechtenstein. They all concluded the same: there were no suspicious business affairs in connection to me and my companies. I’m not tobacco mafia boss and I'm not in any way connected with anything defined as a criminal act. - There only remains Italy? The investigation is not completed there yet. I expect from the Italian authorities to call me and ask me what I have to say. I will be happy to answer their call and clarify with evidence that foundations of allegations against me are based on immense manipulation from Serbia. - You didn’t answer me, why were you kept in the Russian custody? I traveled to Moscow at the invitation of the President of the Council of the Russian Federation. I was kept at the airport and spent two months in custody. - Because of Interpol wanted list? Yes. For two months the Russians had enough time to investigate the documents that had been sent from Serbia as an explanation of the indictment raised against me in the Special Court from the same Koštunica’s people who protect each type of crime in Belgrade. The indictment was full of illogicalities which were understood even in Russia which is in good relation with Serbia. For example, I was accused of abuse of office in my private firm. I would have understood that if I was in the public service as a minister or something similar, but this was all too ridiculous. - Do you intend to appear in court in Belgrade? Since 1997, when I left Serbia, I came to Belgrade at least once a month. They know where I live and know my address. Neither I nor my lawyers have been officially informed about the wanted list. They obviously wanted to make a circus out of it and they did. In the meantime, I offered warranty to defend myself from feedom but they didn’t answer. - Not still, or they don’t mean to? This is the part that confuses me the most, or even better to say that I’m flabbergasted. It seems that they do not want me in court. As they do not want me to say anything. And this attitude I absolutely understood at the time of Vojislav Kostunica. I and my political friends, Đinđić and Đukanović, for him were opponents he wanted to get even with. I disliked it of course, but it was in a way logical. - Well today in power is again the Democratic Party of Serbia of Zoran Djindjic? True. Today in power in Serbia is the Democratic Party of Zoran Djindjic, the party that ought to defend not only me from crazy attacks, but primarily its dead leader, against whom, together with Đukanović and me, has been construed to have been a criminal and smuggler. And, now we are witnessing, through the case of Pukanić, who was killed “allegedly” because he had been the “alleged” witness, that the three of us had been conducting cigarette smuggling. And now, using this case, they are imputing to the three of us that we are murderers. And the Democratic Party, the party in power in Serbia, the party which I helped countless times, on which its leaders can testify, together with the President Boris Tadic, in the end the party with whose members, including Tadic, because of all the above-mentioned, I had very affectionate relationship. The same party not only hasn’t helped me, but it hasn’t done anything for me to at least be allowed, on bail, to defend myself from freedom. That part shocks me, I cannot understand it, as I also don’t understand that today in Serbia in key places in the judiciary, media and police, are people of Vojislav Kostunica. Tadic has simply left them there. And I wouldn’t be the least interested, but these people in the judiciary, police and the media today and decide on my fate, directly or indirectly. Moreover, what can be more said than the fact that the person, who directly participated in the creation of the “tobacco affair” in which Đinđić, Đukanović and I were vilified, is now the director of Public Television Service of the National Public Television? So let my friends from the DS, which keep him on that place, say that that is the reward for what he did. If they won’t, I will say it ... - Well, say it then…? Not like this. I’m just finishing the extensive video and written statement of all that was happening since 1995 until 2008 in Serbia. The names of the people with whom I had different connections, the names of those who were blackmailing me in 1997 when, due to the support I was providing for anti-Milošević parties, primarily Zoran Djindjic’s, I was exiled from Serbia. Probably in the next two to three weeks time, I shall direct it to the Special Court and the public. - What do you think what will be the reaction? I don’t know that. I never wanted to cause turmoil on the Serbian political scene and among the business people who are close to them. But in order to protect my family, me and my honor I need to do something to make the truth be heard about me, my work and my contacts in business and political circles. - Are you afraid for your own safety? I was concerned for that for so long that I can no longer be. I’m only afraid that something happens before I say all that I have to say. - Did you receive threats? All these years. They are constantly threatening me. Even today. Don’t you think that the threat is what is happening just now? Don’t you think that a threat is when someone puts you in the context of a liquidation of a man? And I should be justifying myself, for the family of the killed, because of lies and machinations think that I’m behind the death of their relatives. - How you and Milo Djukanovic became friends? Djukanovic has been my friend for twenty years now. - What about accusations that the bank accounts with your name are actually laundered money of Milo Djukanovic? That is just a part of the stories and lies spread about me to harm Đukanović and the late Zoran Djindjic. Likewise there were talks that the aircraft of my company was actually Đukanović’s. Then, that the income of my business was actually money laundering for Djukanovic and Djindjic. But all the investigations, as I have already said, showed that the money was legally earned. Always when they attacked me, they targeted Djindjic and Djukanovic. First me, and then them through me. And it always preceeded some important political events in Serbia or Montenegro, which couldn’t have been a mere coincidence - Did you financially support Đinđić’s party? Since 1995 till Đinđić’s death, and even few years after his murder, I was helping the Democratic Party. I gave them 10 million euros and I do not believe that anyone has given more for democratic changes in Serbia. And a lot of them brag that to have given so much. - What do you know about the relationship of Djindjic and Kostunica? The same people from Koštunica’s headquarters, who set me for elimination, provided political, logistical and other assistance in the assassination of Zoran Djindjic. After he had been murdered, the attacks on me hadn’t stopped, because it was necessary for them to prove that I was the criminal and therefore Đinđić would also be a criminal. Especially because I financially helped his party. I had to be punished, regardless of whether I was guilty or not. French version |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 May 2009 ) |
