Who Is Hiding Behind Berislav Roncevic?

‘He did not operate on his own but for the benefit of people close to him and his superiors’, he is now a litmus test for the judiciary.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – Criminal charges have been filed against Croatia’s former defence minister and current member of parliament Berislav Roncevic. And what now? 

Parliament discussing stripping immunity only in autumn 

While Roncevic and his family are vacationing on the Adriatic coast, judicial institutions are following this procedure: after filing a police report on July 31 for having signed a harmful deal that harmed the government budget by 10 million kuna, according to the new Law on Criminal Procedure, the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) has 30 days to decide whether there is justifiable cause to believe a criminal act has been committed and in line with that issues an indictment. In the next month the court is to decide whether the indictment will be upheld, and if so, the court will request that Roncevic be stripped of his parliament immunity. Then an investigation into his bank accounts begins which should determine what the trail of the ten million kuna was, since that is the amount that is believed to be in excess for what should have been paid for the 39 military trucks purchased through a direct deal with the Eurokamioni company.

The Immunity and Mandate Commission will decide about Roncevic at autumn’s session. If parliament decides to rescind the immunity of one of its members who has already stated that this is a “politically motivated process”, then an investigation starts into the money trail which should determine whether and for whose pocket Roncevic acquired the ten million kuna – his own, the party’s, the clique that is on top of the Croatian Democratic Union’s (HDZ) food chain, that is, how much went to whom.

Sanader’s resignation gave momentum to police 

At first glance it would seem like the police and judiciary finally started doing their jobs after Prime Minister Ivo Sanader resigned. But can we really believe that the arrival of Jadranka Kosor the abandoned helm of the ship changed political will by 180 degrees – from the policy of protecting Berislav Roncevic at any cost in a farce of a parliamentary investigating commission and the dismissal of Vladimir Faber and his promotion to today’s words by Justice Minister Ivan Simonovic that the “trucks case has to be resolved for Croatia’s reputation”.

Although the case waited to be resolved since 2005 when President Stjepan Mesic warned for the first time about the lack of logic because 39 truck were being bought through a direct deal at almost the same price at which 76 trucks could have been purchased through a public tender, Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko denied that the criminal charges were put away somewhere in a drawer. According to him, criminal charges were filed as soon as relevant evidence was collected. Can we believe in that? Was really the Defence Ministry entry log of visitors not available in 2007 when the investigation began and did it really have to take four years to request financial and technical forensic investigations which confirmed that it was not true that the cheaper MAN vehicles did not have the necessary NATO certificates?

Hebrang: Faber said there was no crime, now he says differently 

Back in May the Andrija Hebrang, the head of the HDZ’s majority in the investigating commission, slammed the chairman of the commission, Nenad Stazic, claming Roncevic was not at fault and that the trucks were purchased in a legal manner. A month ago this decision was confirmed by the majority in the Croatian parliament with 72 votes for, two abstained and 27 con. Moreover, Berislav Roncevic was then awarded the position of vice chairman in the Defence Committee and given a 2,300 kuna raise, even though it was published back then that a meeting between the defence ministry and interior ministry took place at which it was decided that criminal charges will be filed against him. Today, after it has been reported that criminal charges have been filed, Andrija Hebrang says:

- I still believe that Berislav Roncevic is innocent until found guilty. During the work of the investigating commission there were no documents from the financial and technical forensic investigations that have now appeared. If Roncevic is convicted, I will apologise. But one should not prejudge matters. During the work of the investigating commission we heard from Vladimir Faber who was recorded as saying that there were no elements of a crime. Now he says otherwise. We should let the institutions do their work.

Will the Roncevic case become like the Glavas case? 

But will the institutions do their work? That is the question the usually harsh Social Democratic Party’s former justice minister Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic does not want to either reply to or comment:

- Criminal charges have been filed, but that does not mean that criminal proceedings will be initiated. Nobody can know that now, it would be unfair for politicians to make such judgments. This should be a question for the institutions. There are deadlines and politicians must not get involved. In every case, just like in this one, the law-based state must function. The SDP and our members said all they had to say about this during a discussion in the electoral commission. Whether there will be similarities between the Glavas and Roncevic cases I neither wish nor am allowed to say – Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic concluded.

Attorney and former president of the Supreme Court, Krunislav Olujic, has no political obstacles to conclude that there is a big probability that the Roncevic case simply loses wind in the justice system like a bubble. Still, he believes that Berislav Roncevic will not seek protection and peace from the Croatian judiciary in the neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina, simply because he does not have dual citizenship, and as far as it is known, he does not even have the preconditions to get it because the neighbouring country has clarified its fugitive policy.

When the judiciary drops to its knees 

- I think it is impossible for the case of Branimir Glavas to happen again because the Croat component is least represented in Bosnian policy. There are Serb and Muslim policies, judges and the international community that are more influential. But I presume that the HDZ majority, just like in the Glavas case, will allow criminal proceedings without him being remanded in custody. This will probably be the case by the end of the process which could last for years. I think that the Immunity and Mandate Commission has shown that it enjoyed the indisputable support from Hebrang, Vladimir Seks and Bozidar Kalmeta who make up the majority option in the HDZ, so in that part I can expect a total destruction of the judiciary, the State Prosecution and courts. Roncevic will enjoy support because those ten million kuna had to have ended up somewhere and he was not working on his own, but to the benefit of people close to him and his superiors. This means there will be criminal proceedings and Roncevic will continue to receive his MP salary and perform his party duties throughout the proceedings, arraignment, trial of first and second instances and possible extraordinary appeals processes. Donkey, wait for the grass to grow. In changed political circumstances who knows how things will develop. We saw everything in the Glavas case when the entire judiciary fell to its knees with its trousers down. There is no reason for this not to happen again in the Roncevic case. An investigation is yet to determine where the money ended up and it is a big question how much can actually be determined. Look at the cases of Petrac and Zagorac, various moguls and privatisation crime where it was next to impossible to determine where the money was siphoned to. The government is declaring its fight against organised crime speaking about money that leaves a trail, yet it seems that the trail of money has never been determined, at least I don’t know of a case like that. If it had been, today Croatia’s problems would be constructing new jails for the numerous new jailbirds – Olujic concluded, not at all optimistic in the judicial clearing of the military trucks scandal.

Did Sanader leave because of Roncevic? 

A senior source in the HDZ, however, tells us that conviction is growing stronger within the party that the inflow of party money via Eurokamioni was the work of Roncevic under the auspices of his close associate, Vladimir Seks, about which Ivo Sanader knew nothing until the scandal broke. The usually normal collecting of fund for the party circumvented norms and the party president learnt about it after the president of the country did. Apart from police work, Vladimir Faber took up political work, which was why he was dismissed.

Still, the investigation and interest of the public got so heated that resigning as prime minister was Sanader’s only possible way out, people in the HDZ claim. According to this, it turns out that there would never have been a scandal had Ivo Sanader monitored the entire operation, but now by hierarchy, he has to answer to the public for other people’s sloppiness and had he himself began clearing Roncevic’s group, he would have caused a rift within the party. If the start of processing Berislav Roncevic was cause for his withdrawal, will a final verdict bring Sanader back to politics?