CROATIA: UPDATE ON MISSING GOTOVINA DOCUMENTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 000853

SIPDIS
NOFORN

STATE FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PPD, EUR/RPM AND S/WCI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/11/2018
TAGS: PREL KAWC ICTY HR
SUBJECT: CROATIA: UPDATE ON MISSING GOTOVINA DOCUMENTS

REF: ZAGREB 831

Classified By: Chris Zimmer, Political Officer, Reasons 1.4 (B/D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: Croatian officials stress that the political
will exists to resolve the issue of missing documents in the
Gotovina case before The Hague, but are uncertain whether
ICTY Prosecutor Brammertz can be persuaded that the GoC has
done all that it can. Croatia's Chief State Prosecutor also
wonders how lawyer Marin Ivanovic, chief suspect in the
disappearance of at least some of the documents requested by
ICTY, has secured a position as member of Gotovina's defense
team despite his inexperience, and why ICTY has taken no
actions to remove Ivanovic from the case despite the Croatian
indictment. The Dutch Ambassador to Croatia concedes that
latest actions by Croatians are positive, but believes
pressure is still needed to push the Croatians to cooperate.
End Summary.


2. (C) Deputy Prime Minister Kosor told the Ambassador on
December 5 that she was tasked by the Prime Minister to
organize the effort to find the documents requested by ICTY,
or investigate what happened to them if they cannot be
located. She stressed the political commitment in Croatia to
deal with the issue. She said it would be "illogical", after
having helped to get Gotovina to The Hague, to risk all that
they have achieved by withholding documents. She argued that
since none of the current members of the government had been
in positions of responsibility for Operation Storm, they have
no reason to hide documents in order to protect someone.


3. (C) In conversations on December 9 and 11, with Poloff and
Polcouns respectively, Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic
elaborated on the criminal investigation his office is
conducting into the disappearance of documents requested by
ICTY in the case of General Gotovina. Bajic said that he
believes that there are or were some notebooks that contained
information on artillery during Operation Storm in 1995, but
that these were not formal logs, per se. These notebooks
could be the artillery logs which the ICTY Office of the
Prosecutor (OTP) believes were mentioned in other documents
seen by ICTY. Bajic said that these notebooks are among the
documents his office believes Ivanovic received in 2007 from
two members of the Croatian Army who are also currently under
indictment.


4. (C) Bajic said that it is difficult to find many documents
because, in the past, officials often kept their records
after they left office instead of turning them over to
archives. He also said that several documents were simply
misfiled. For instance, during the current investigation,
they found some documents placed in the wrong storage area of
the military archives and have now turned these over to the
ICTY. Bajic said that both he and Prime Minister Sanader had
had lenghty phone conversations with ICTY Prosecutor
Brammertz to try and convince Brammertz that the GoC was
fully cooperating over the documents and hiding nothing.
Bajic said he thought Brammertz might moderate some of his
criticism of Croatia at the UNSC session on Dec. 12, but
still did not appear fully satisfied.


5. (C) Bajic noted that the Gotovina defense is the first
case on which Ivanovic has worked as a lawyer. He thought it
was strange that an inexperienced lawyer would be included on
such a sensitive case. Bajic told Poloff that Ivanovic had
previously been a member of military intelligence and that he
personally believed Ivanovic was added to the defense because
he already had some documents or could get access to
documents wanted by the defense team.


6. (C) Bajic added that he is puzzled why Ivanovic is still
working at The Hague. He said he informed the Court and
Office of the Prosecutor about the Ivanovic indictments and,
while Gotovina's team was reacting by trying to discredit
Bajic, the OTP had not taken any actions against Ivanovic,
such as asking to have him removed from the defense. Bajic
said Brammertz had pushed him to search Ivanovic's office and
home in Croatia (which Bajic argued was pointless as the
documents would not be there),but had demurred when Bajic
suggested that similar searches of Ivanovic's offices in the
Netherlands might be more productive.


7. (C) The Dutch Ambassador, in a conversation with the
Ambassador on December 9, said that the latest actions by the
Croatians were "very positive." She added, however, that this
showed that pressure is needed to push the Croatians to
cooperate.


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8. (C/NF) COMMENT: The GoC remains very concerned about
Brammertz's negative conclusions regarding Croatia's
cooperation with the ICTY, particularly as indications grow
that some EU member states will raise the issue in the
context of Croatia's EU accession, but professes to be at
wits' end as to what more they can do to try and satisfy him.
They can question more people, and search more unrelated
files to see what turns up, but if the documents in question
are truly lost, or never existed in the form that Brammertz
believes they did, then Croatia will end up stuck in a blind
alley with no way out. They will be listening very carefully
to Brammertz's presentation to the UNSC today. END COMMENT.
BRADTKE