SIX DRY GULCHES FOR ĐINĐIĆ IN TWO MONTHS, AND SERVICES DID NOTHING! Mesarović: 'Operation Sabre is how Serbia survived!'

"Dr Zoran Đinđić was assassinated in the period after the democratic changes in Serbia, when the majority of its citizens believed that a time had come when Serbia could change. I won't talk about how difficult it was for us to work in that criminal proceeding. I think that the hardest thing of all was the realization that we were living in a country in which the prime minister of a government, a state representative of a country, could be killed by an organized, criminal, hostile group, in the government building yard no less, for their own criminal and political purposes. It was a felony against the state."

This is how in 2007 Judge Nata Mesarović, Presiding Judge of the Council of Judges who convicted the murderers of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, delivered the sentence of nearly 380 years' imprisonment to the main defendants – members of the Special Operations Units (JSO) Milorad Ulemek Legija and Zvezdan Jovanović, as well as many members and associates of the Zemun Criminal Gang.

Today, 19 years after the assassination of the prime minister, in her interview with Kurir Nata Mesarović said that during the trial, the council of judges had not had any support, even from the top circles of the judiciary.

What was the most difficult time for you during the court trial, which was described as the "trial of the century"?

"Everything was difficult during that trial, the whole atmosphere created by the media in society and public life about the court case… The special prosecutor was replaced while working on this case, an active deputy was arrested for divulging an official secret related to a different case to his wife, another deputy left the prosecutor's office, the previous presiding judge had left the court… We didn't have the support needed to bring the trial to an end, or for me to complete the written copy of the judgement."

Were you afraid at any point?

"Joy, fear, and anger are part of being human. I was afraid when I separated the case against Zvezdan Jovanović, which fact attracted no attention of the general public. He then had a surgical intervention based on the clinical case conference decision made at the Neurosurgery Clinic and approved by the presiding judge. It all ended well, but there were many questions and dilemmas that I faced. I worried whether the intervention would go well, because otherwise people would say I was an accessory to hiding the truth, and that I was protecting the organizers and sponsors of the murder."

Officially, Đinđić was murdered in the action "Stop the Hague", in order to prevent the alleged extradition of JSO members to the Hague Tribunal. When you look back, does it strike you as realistic that that was the key motivation for the assassination? Could there have been a broader conspiracy behind this crime?

"That is not the official view as stated in the verdict, although it is often brought up in the Serbian public and media. For the accused Ulemek, the main motive wasn't fighting against extraditions to the Hague Tribunal, as evidenced by the fact that none of the JSO members was in the proceedings at the Hague Tribunal at the time, nor had any arrest warrant been issued. The Hague Tribunal requested information for specific members of the JSO, regarding a longer period of time, and was genuinely interested in the former head of State Security, Jovica Stanišić, as well as Frenki Simatović, the first commander of the JSO."

But Zvezdan Jovanović, who killed the prime minister, mentioned extraditions to the Hague as a motive for the crime.

"That was Zvezdan Jovanović's defence, which he had set forth before authorized officials of the Serbian Ministry of Interior in the preliminary proceedings, and which was read out in the main hearing. He said: 'For what I have done, for liquidating Đinđić, no material gain had been promised to me. I would never have done that for money. I am not a criminal. For me, this murder is political, because I believed that it would stop further extraditions of warriors and true patriots to the Hague and the further disintegration of the JSO and Serbia, because, in my opinion, the Hague is one of the biggest disgraces in the history of Serbia.' That was recorded in the hearing, in the court record dated 7 April 2003. The verdict states that this was not the main or most important motive for the organizers of this criminal group – Ulemek and Spasojević. This can be seen from the plan of the criminal group, as testified by the cooperating witnesses and witnesses. The court established that they had planned murders of other high-ranking representatives of the state with the aim of instilling fear in the Serbian authorities by the power of this criminal group, acting against the security of the country by influencing the government, and forcing personnel choices within it. All this was done in order to retain their sway on the government institutions and individuals in them, to influence the hiring policy and staffing, as well as to allow them to remain involved in organized crime, kidnappings, murders, drug trafficking, and similar activities without let or hindrance. It is important to point out that in the post-2000 changes, the prime minister had on many occasions publicly commended the behaviour of the JSO and its commanding officer Ulemek in the events of October 5, which the media were picking up and which Ulemek abused in many different ways."

The Zemun Gang and Legija were in fact scared of the announcement of the crackdown on organized crime?

"The assassinated prime minster and the government referred to 2002 as the year of cracking down on organized crime. This wasn't just part of a government programme, but also an ongoing thing, given that the Law on the Organization and Remit of State Bodies in the Fight Against Organized Crime had been passed, the law on the criminal code had been amended, the proceeding related to organized crime actions had been regulated, a special organizational unit within the Ministry of Interior had been set up, the special prosecutor and his deputies were being nominated and appointed, and the judges to be active in the Special Division for Combatting Organized Crime were nominated. The organizers of this criminal group were most disturbed by the fact that work was being done on resolving the political murders of the previous regime, e.g. the murder of the former president Ivan Stambolić, the Ibar Highway murder, the attempted assassination of Vuk Drašković in Budva, the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija, the kidnappings, and other unresolved murders. They knew from their sources at the Ministry of Interior and the Prosecutor's Office that Ljubiša Buha had given affidavits regarding this criminal group and its actions, and there were talks about the possibility of Buha becoming a cooperating witness. That's when they realized that that was a serious fight, and that they wouldn't be able to get away, that they would be arrested and imprisoned."

Did the members of the Zemun Criminal Gang have a precise plan on what to do after the murder? And who did they devise such a plan with?

"What do you think – that a plan like that is devised without support that it turned out they had at some state bodies, the Ministry of Interior, the Prosecutor's Office, parts of the Security Service… Spasojević, Luković, and Ulemek didn't plan to become prime ministers and government ministers. They sought out the support of those who would ensure they could operate without let or hindrance. What must be taken into account is the time, the circumstances, as well as the social and political goings-on. Declaring the state of emergency, however much criticism it has received, and Operation Sabre made it possible for Serbia to survive, recover, and go on."

During the trial, we were told among other things about the ties of the politicians to the Zemun Criminal Gang. Has everyone from the government at the time explained their ties and contacts with the people from this gang, or are there some who still owe the general public an explanation? Do you think that there are some who are still afraid of the remnants of the Zemun Gang?

"It was the cooperating witnesses, some of the defendants, and witnesses who explained the circumstances and goings-on in society that discussed these contacts the most. The court heard many witnesses in order to establish a number of facts, but even in recent days the media tell us that many people – those who were and still are present in the various domains of public life – spent time with Ulemek and the leaders of the Zemun Gang. Perhaps it is right there, in all these contacts, that a bad climate that was created during the court trial and the hostility towards the council of judges can be explained. As Zoran Vukojević [author's note: cooperating witness] used to say, 'He didn't need them, they looked for him.' They were active in society in order to justify the crime and prevent the court from bringing the proceedings to an end by handing down a verdict."

Many people – and you have addressed this issue previously – agree that there were major oversights in the prime minister's security. In recent days we have heard the claim that he could have been taken out of his house "bed and all". How do you explain the fact that the prime minister did not have a strong security?

"There's no question that there were oversights, major ones at that, in all aspects of the prime minister's security. Here I don't mean just his personal security detail as a form of physical security. The fact is that there wasn't any serious exchange of information, findings, anything. How else do you explain the fact that there had been as many as six attempts at drygulching the prime minister in the course of two months, and that no one was informing anyone else about it, nor were the services doing nothing about it. The relevant government minister responded by saying that they hadn't trusted a great many people, but it's been concluded that there were true, loyal professionals in these services. I was surprised to hear the responses of the authorities that in that period, and especially after the assassination attempt at the Limes Hall, the prime minister did not ask for his security to be reinforced and the security situation to be checked. The question then is – what exactly the duty of the relevant authorities was, because it wasn't the job a person under protection was to do. Moreover, the witnesses confirmed that that the minister of interior [author's note: Dušan Mihajlović] and the DOS parliamentary leader [author's note: Čedomir Jovanović] had had better security. I have no comment regarding the last statement."

On the prime minister's murderers' friends

'It's important they condemn the crime'

A few years ago you told me that "the friends of Đinđić's murderers are now successful people". Is that still true?

"I don't know that I responded in this way, and I don't know who exactly is among his murderers' friends, but there are some among the successful, in all walks of life. It's important that they all condemn the crime."

Boban Karović