MARGETIC - CROATIANS ARREST JOURNALIST AT ICTY

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000943 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EUR DICARLO; EUR/SCE - HOH, DAVIS; S/WCI WILLIAMSON, BERG; L/EUR JOHNSON; INR MORIN DEPT PLEASE PASS TO NSC BRAUN E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/08/2016 TAGS: PGOV KAWC KHJUS HR WAR CRIMES SUBJECT: MARGETIC - CROATIANS ARREST JOURNALIST AT ICTY REQUEST Classified By: Pol Officer Tom Selinger for reasons 1.4(b) &(d) ¶1. (U) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: Croatian authorities arrested journalist Domagoj Margetic on August 4 for contempt of court at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after he published on his U.S.-based website a list of 102 protected witnesses from the trial of Bosnian Croat General Tihomir Blaskic. Margetic will be detained for up to two months pending acceptance of a transfer order from The Hague. U.S. authorities reportedly shut down his website after receiving an ICTY court order. ¶2. (U) Margetic, who is more anti-Hague activist than journalist, has repeatedly defied Tribunal orders, claiming the court has no jurisdiction over him. He was among the four Croatian journalists indicted for contempt by the ICTY in 2005 for publishing the protected testimony of President Stjepan Mesic from the Blaskic trial, though the ICTY later "declassified" Mesic's testimony and dropped charges against Margetic. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT. ICTY: MARGETIC HAS RECKLESSLY ENDANGERED WITNESSES -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) ICTY Head of Mission in Croatia Thomas Osorio told PolOff that Margetic will be indicted in The Hague within seven days of his arrival for contempt of court involving the reckless endangerment of the lives of protected witnesses. The Tribunal is extremely serious about stopping Margetic, according to Osorio, as they will now be now forced to relocate a number of protected witnesses, many of whom are villagers who took great risks to testify in The Hague. ¶4. (C) While NGOs such as the Croatian Helsinki Committee opposed the ICTY's previous indictment of Margetic based on freedom of the press, Osorio said the Tribunal is receiving overwhelming support from the NGO community following this recent arrest. Unlike the Mesic testimony, Osorio noted, which involved a current head of state, there is no overwhelming public interest in revealing the identities of these protected witnesses, who are primarily ordinary citizens. ¶5. (C) To further aggravate the charges, Osorio added, Margetic makes a profit from his website through banner advertisements. This means the court could see his posting of a list of protected witnesses, which generated thousands of visits to his site, as an attempt at personal gain. According to Osorio, prosecutors in The Hague will seek both a fine and a prison sentence for Margetic. HISTORY OF ANTI-ICTY ACTIVITIES -------------- ¶6. (U) Margetic also made headlines earlier this year when he attempted to distribute CDs containing a recording of Mesic's testimony, which was still protected at the time. He was arrested at the Zagreb headquarters of the war veterans NGO HVIDRA, provoking a police incident and de-railing Embassy-supported efforts to open a dialogue between ICTY outreach personnel and HVIDRA members. DELAWIE