Police arrest Serbian fugitive

By Beth Kampschror

Simovic and the man he allegedly wounded – Sretko Kalinic – were sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison in 2007 for conspiring to kill Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003. Both men are believed to be affiliated with the Zemun Clan gang that was behind the murder. Both had been at large.

Simovic will serve out his sentence in Serbia. Kalinic suffered gunshot wounds in the chest and stomach; he’s under arrest while being treated at a Zagreb hospital. Kalinic, a Croatian citizen, is unlikely to be extradited to Serbia. B92 also reported that under Croatia’s current law, Kalinic cannot serve out a Serbian-imposed prison sentence in Croatia. He might walk free, the station reported, but there are other possibilities:

In Belgrade, lawyer Božo Prelević told B92 that it was possible that the gangster would be tried in Croatia for the crimes committed in Serbia, and added he believed “Croatia would gladly get rid of Kalinić”.

The Djindjic assassination trial revealed some of the connections between the government’s elite paramilitary/security Special Operations Unit and the powerful Serbian crime gang known as the Zemun Clan. Unit members Milorad Ulemek and Zvenzdan Jovanovic were sentenced to 40 years apiece; a number of Zemun Clan gangsters were also found guilty. This trial in Belgrade, and war crimes trial in The Hague, also revealed the connections between the government of Slobodan Milosevic, his secret services and various criminal groups in the region.

But that is all in the past, according to Reuters’s wording:

Pro-Western Djindjic, who led the ouster of autocrat Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, was shot dead in March 2003 in central Belgrade in an operation by disgruntled state security officials, paramilitaries and crime gang members.

Organized crime flourished throughout former Yugoslavia during its breakup in the 1990s, condoned by the authorities who later used criminals for ethnic cleansing and clandestine operations in wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

It might just be unintentional wording, or a glitch in the editing process, but doesn’t this make it sound like organized crime is no longer a problem in Serbia? The wars are over, Milosevic has been out of office for 10 years (and dead for four), let’s just move along, nothing to see here.

In fact, an article last week involving Serbia’s top police official illustrates this current of thought. Interior Minister Ivica Dacic was in South America last week, visiting various cocaine-hub countries to sign police cooperation agreements. In Uruguay, rather than discussing the numerous and dangerous cocaine trafficking connections between Serbia and South America, and how the police can stop them, he took the opportunity to praise Uruguay for not recognizing Kosovo. Whether it’s the fault of the officials that make these statements, or the press that publicizes them, why do they need to pontificate about this when there are other pressing problems, like organized diamond thieves, cocaine kingpins and a political life with little financial oversight? Governments also do nothing while people who investigate these types of things face beatings and death threats as a matter of course.

In other neighborhood news, the European Union (EU) extended its rule-of-law mission to Kosovo for another two years last week. That mission, known as EULEX, has been in Kosovo for about two years but has recently stepped up its public profile with a high-profile investigation of transport minister Fatmir Limaj. No charges have been laid, but last week EULEX spokeswoman Karin Limdal said the evidence was serious:

She said that the prosecution has several sources in the Limaj case and that along with the evidence gathered in the investigation, they show evidence of money laundering, organized crime and corruption.

EULEX is investigating more than 20 senior figures in Kosovo, according to the Financial Times.

But, as I think I mentioned last week, not everyone backs EULEX’s push against corruption. Kosovars’ enthusiasm about the Limaj investigation has been such that a prankster installed a street sign in Pristina naming the street after a EULEX prosecutor, writes one anti-corruption activist, but the US and France’s at-best lukewarm interest  could damage EULEX’s efforts. His examples re the US:

In a ceremonial signing of a billion-dollar contract for a highway to be built by the American company, Bechtel, the main target of the EULEX raid, Transport Minister Limaj, was shown on national television, side by side with the key international actor in Kosovo, the US ambassador, Christopher Dell.

A few weeks after the contract was signed, the US ambassador made it clear that he did not favour any significant arrests in a lecture given at Kosovo American University. During his talk, he said that Kosovo needed to diminish the government’s access to the economy, meaning that public companies should be handed over to the private sector.

Less than a week later Dell wrote an article, which all Kosovo newspapers published, in which “in the name of American people” he congratulated the government on the concession for the airport.

This was his response to critics of the controversial contract signed by the Transport Ministry, which practically handed over Prihstina International Airport to an international consortium for free.  

The opening of offers for the airport concession was yet another ceremony at which Ambassador Dell was seen warmly hugging Minister Limaj.

Answering complaints from other bidders about the concession for Prishtina airport, Dell gave the USAID consultant’s word as guarantee that the concession had been open and transparent.

Nothing was said about the fact that the content of the various offers was not revealed to the public when they were opened some two weeks earlier.

In other news from eastern and southeastern Europe:

Int’l: Albanian gang charged in US

Thirteen members of an Albanian drug gang were arrested in the US and Canada last week and charged with narcotics trafficking, robbery and various counts of kidnapping.

Three members of the so-called Krasniqi Organization, run by brothers Bruno and Samir Krasniqi, remain at large. The FBI did not specify whether the gang members’ origins were in Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia or in Albania proper.

Also in the US last week, a federal prosecutor filed court papers alleging that a Bulgarian national indicted for defrauding Las Vegas-area car dealers out of $1.6 million, as well as for stealing $700,000 from area ATMs made threats as good as any old-school Vegas mobster. In fact, Dimitar Dimitrov, 58, went much better, reported the city’s main paper:

(Assistant US attorney Kathleen) Bliss wrote that Dimitrov vowed to get crime figures in Bulgaria to "cut off the ears" of the former associate, Atanasov Kostadinov, and "use them as cigarette holders." Dimitrov also threatened to have people break Kostadinov's leg, stab him in the spine and drown him, Bliss wrote.

This is the same guy FBI agents and Las Vegas police say they overheard on wiretaps bragging that he knew how to keep a witness in line by tying him to a tree with wire, pouring gasoline over him and standing next to him with cigarettes and a lighter.

At a detention hearing for Dimitrov on May 24, Bliss told U.S. Magistrate Robert Johnston that the defendant was heard saying, "I'm going to turn him into barbecue."

Dimitrov remains in jail.

Italy

Italy’s Senate last week passed a bill that would limit wiretapping, and fine media that broadcast or print leaked information on criminal investigations.

The law – which passed 164 to five in the Senate – would require investigators to have more evidence to request a wiretap, and limit the surveillance to 75 days, down from 18 months. Media that publish leaked information would face a fine of nearly half a million euros.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has had various embarrassing cases of the press making his tapped phone calls public. In one case, a newspaper published transcripts of Berlusconi’s calls urging a state television official to give roles to Berlusconi’s female acquaintances. In another:

Last year, magazine l’Espresso published recordings of pillow talk between Berlusconi and self-proclaimed prostitute Patrizia D’Addario. She had used her cell phone to secretly record their conversations and the tapes became part of an investigation in Bari, Italy, that never involved the premier. Among the recordings was Berlusconi telling D’Addario to wait for him “on the big bed” in his Rome residence while he showered.

Law enforcement officials in both Italy and the US are skeptical:

The country’s top police chief Antonio Manganelli and chief anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso have said the law could affect the ability of investigators to catch criminals, especially mobsters. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, when asked about the draft law on May 21 in Rome, said telephone recordings are “essential” to organized-crime investigations.

“Obviously, from a prosecutor’s point of view, you don’t want anything to occur that prevents the Italians from doing as they’ve done in the past” when they were “extraordinary partners” in U.S. mafia investigations, Breuer said.