Anto Nobilo is the best-known Croatian lawyer. He has been practising law for nearly three decades, and had previously worked as a prosecutor. He has been involved in many cases that have attracted media attention – the arrest of the paramilitary guard leader Željko Ražnatović Arkan and the murder of the Serbian Zec family in Zagreb in the early 1990s – and he also took an active part in a Hague Tribunal case.
In his interview with Kurir, Nobilo talks about the cases that he has worked on, touches on the current situation of the Serbs in Croatia, Operation Storm and the expelling of Serbs from the Croatian state in the mid-1990s, as well as revealing details on the negotiations between the former presidents of Serbia and Croatia.
This month saw the marking of 30 years since the murder of the Serbian Zec family in Zagreb. In the lawsuit against Croatia, you represented the surviving members of this family – two children. As an experienced lawyer, what is your take on the fact that no one was held to account for the murder of three members of this family?
"The fact that almost no one was held to account for the murder of the Zec family says something about the legal and political situation that the Croatian state found itself in in the 1990s and afterwards. I say, almost no one, as Tomislav Merčep was convicted in 2016 – albeit belatedly – for command responsibility, which included the murder of the Zec family. Merčep was practically the murderers' commanding officer and was an advisor to the minister of interior both then and at the time of the trial. He wasn't relieved of duty even after this murder. He was a prominent member of the CDU. The murderers were in the Croatian Ministry of Interior's reserve police forces. I think the closest to the truth I can get is if I say that the political situation that Croatia found itself in, coupled with the dismantling of a good deal of solid judiciary from the 1980s Yugoslavia, resulted in such a legal outcome for a crime that still causes public outrage. I'm absolutely certain that, if the Zec family had been of Croatian nationality and the murderers were Serbs, they would have been convicted then as much as today."
Were you surprised by the statement by the Croatian President Zoran Milanović that, "the surviving members of the Zec family have received damages, so what else is there to do," and by his claim that the Croatian state wasn't involved in that crime, but that it was simply a crime of robbing a rich family?
"Yes, I was. He obviously doesn't have the right information. If he had asked me, I would have explained everything to him. Between November and December 1991, Merčep's death squads killed 44 people. All the victims have the same characteristic – they were Serbian and well-off; or these squads thought it was worthwhile to rob them. The fault of the state lies in the fact that they were in the Ministry of Interior police reserve forces. They got their uniforms, vehicles, and everything else from the Croatian police. Their actual commanding officer was an advisor to the minister of interior. During the 2015/2016 court proceedings against Merčep for war crimes, the Ministry of Interior was paying for his defence. It's really simple – if the police are committing serial murders, then we can say that it was the state that killed them and is responsible. If the police aren't an executive body of the state, then I don't know who is. I know this very precisely because as a prosecutor I requested the arrest of some 15 Merčep's murderers in the spring of 1991. We held them in custody and conducted an investigation, but when on 1 July 1992 I left the prosecutor's office and became an attorney-at-law, they were immediately released."
It is interesting that you managed to secure the damages for the surviving Zec family members in the first place.
"The damages for the Zec family were awarded only as a result of the pressure of the media, who I had given the materials on the crime. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader first refused to pay the damages, with the explanation – written for him by the prosecutor's office – stating, 'We do not know if the murderers of the family in question were police officers committing the murder inside or outside their working hours.' A media frenzy ensued, and I gave the pictures of the bodies of the mother and daughter from the police photographic evidence to Ivo Pukanić, who was the editor-in-chief of a widely read weekly Nacional. He 'spread it all out' across five or six pages. It was brutal. Just horrific. The morning after Nacional came out, I got a call from PM Sanader, asking me to stop the media war and accepting the payment of the damages. So, I had achieved my goal as an attorney and helped those children, but with the help of the media. Otherwise, we would have spent as many as 10 years in litigation with the Republic of Croatia."
How big a cause for concern should the inflammatory rhetoric and sporadic physical assaults against Serbs in Croatia be today? What is your view on the current situation of the Serbs in Croatia?
"There needs to be a response to any incident that spreads interethnic hatred. This is a very sensitive topic and can easily spiral out of control. However, generally speaking, the situation the Serbs are in now in Croatia is satisfactory. Serbs are in the Croatian government. They have Deputy Prime Minister Milošević. There's also Professor Pupovac, Croatian Serbs' leader of many years. We have an election law that guarantees three seats in the parliament for the Serbs. I think that it is the economic situation that is the biggest problem for the Serbs outside the urban centres, in the territories that the war centred around – Banija, Kordun, North Dalmatia. The economic situation, i.e. insufficient jobs, is forcing everyone – Croats and Serbs alike – to leave these areas. It's paradoxical that both Croats and Serbs are leaving the territory over which they had fought 30 years ago and shed so much blood. Nowadays, the very areas for which people were dying no longer matter to anyone."
You said once that back in the 1990s, "strategically speaking, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević were allies, even though they were in a tactical conflict here and there in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina." Could you elaborate on this relationship between the presidents of Croatia and Serbia?
"I think that my remark was correct. I get most of the information in my possession from the seven and a half years of the Hague Tribunal trial of the Central Bosnia CDC operational zone commander, General Tihomir Blaškić. I was his defence attorney. Both Tuđman and Milošević had the idea to divide Bosnia up. They were manoeuvring under the pressure of the international community but, if they'd had a chance, they would have certainly divided Bosnia up. Both of them thought – if Serbia and Croatia reached an agreement and divided Bosnia and Herzegovina – that would be the basis for a long-term peace. Franjo Tuđman wanted to bring back the Banate of Croatia and so become the president of Croatia that spanned the largest possible territory in history. Maček had done it, but it was within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and this was soon swept away during World War II. Milošević continued the policy of the Kingdom of Serbia, which had never defined its borders and first spread southwards (Macedonia). When the Bulgarians stopped it, it turned towards Bosnia (The Black Hand, Gavrilo Princip, etc.). That's where you can see the continuity of the Serbian national policy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Milošević knew that he wouldn't be able to retain parts of Croatia. He simply misused the Croatian Serbs to weaken Tuđman's negotiation position in Bosnia and Herzegovina."
In your opinion, what was the 1995 Croatian Operation Storm, during which over 200,000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia?
"The two sides view Operation Storm from mutually contradictory standpoints. I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Under its constitution and the international law, Croatia had the right to establish control over the Krajina by the use of arms, and so integrate that area in the constitutional order of the Republic of Croatia. It was an internationally recognized Croatian territory. However, in planning the combat operations, the Croatian military and police had to envisage measures aimed at maintaining peace and order, which meant securing civilian lives and property. Sadly, that wasn't done. Once the combat units of the guard were in – who for the most part executed purely combat operations – the second reserve echelon were allowed to enter, followed by civilians, all of whom were the locals who the Serbian forces had driven out of their villages in 1991. That's when the looting started, followed by setting the Serbian homes and commercial facilities on fire – some 16,000 of them – but also, sadly, murdering the few Serbs who had stayed. On the other hand, the rebel Serbian authorities ordered the evacuation. Under the Krajina authorities' orders, the Serbian civilians left Croatia. Organized by the Serbs, these 200,000 people went to Bosnia and Herzegovina and further on, to Serbia. However, it was the Croats that organized burning down their villages and killing many civilians to make sure Serbs wouldn't come back. No one in Croatia is willing to admit to that, but Croatia is short by these 200,000 Serbs, demographically and economically."
On releasing Gotovina and Markač
'I said right away, "OK, they're innocent, but the crimes did occur" '
As you have been able to see for yourself, many people find it hard to believe that the Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač were acquitted at The Hague for the crimes committed in Operation Storm.
"Generals Gotovina and Markač were acquitted at The Hague, and that is a fact that needs to be respected. However, right after the ruling was handed down, as a TV RTL expert commentator, I said, 'OK. They're innocent, but the crimes did occur. I expect that the Croatian courts will process the lower-ranking commanders and direct perpetrators, because someone did commit those crimes.' Sadly, they didn't do as I suggested."
Boban Karović/ Kurir.rs
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