UN Attempts to Silence Journalists Falters

By Brian Gallagher

26 June 2006

There has been high drama at the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) regarding its efforts to prosecute Croatian journalists. The contempt charges are for supposedly revealing the identity of a protected witness, Stipe Mesic, now President of Croatia. Charges have been dropped against 3 of the 4 journalists concerned and Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has faced public criticism from a judge on the matter. Most importantly, the charges against Josip Jovic, the remaining journalist being charged have no validity given that the Tribunal allowed others to publish the identity of President Mesic before he did.

Josip Jovic is charged with publishing in 2000 President Mesic’s identity and parts of his testimony in the ICTY Blaskic trial, contradicting an order made on 6 June 1997. Bizarrely, the UN prosecutors only bothered to charge him some 5 years later.

In the 10 March 2006 judgement of a previous contempt trial, that of Ivica Marijacic and Markica Rebic, the judges, in discussing what constitutes contempt in relation to disclosure information stated that “The word disclosure is here to be understood in its literal sense, being the revelation of something that was previously confidential.” - para 17.

Was the information Jovic disclosed “previously confidential”? No, it was not.

The very order of 6 June 1997 which Jovic supposedly breached was - ludicrously - published on the internet by the ICTY itself. The document named Stipe Mesic as a witness in the Blaskic trial. The ICTY itself therefore revealed to the whole world the identity of the witness. And left it there ever since. That information was no longer confidential. Therefore, in revealing Mesic’s identity, Jovic committed no contempt of court.

As a side note, it was worth mentioning that the order of 6 June 1997 arose because some Croatian media had already revealed details about Mesic’s involvement in the Blaskic trial.

Furthermore, other media had reported on Mesic’s identity and testimony prior to Jovic‘s publishing the information, and were not sanctioned for it. Some of the more interesting examples follow.

After the 6 June 1997 decision, the London based Institute of War and Peace Reporting promptly revealed Mesic’s name in its June 9-14 June 1997 edition of Tribunal Update; it remained on its website for all to see.

See it here:
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=tri&s=f&o=180553&apc_state=henitri1997

The IWPR named Mesic again in its Tribunal Update of 7-11 February 2000. See it here:

http://www.iwpr.net/?p=tri&s=f&o=166755&apc_state=henitri2000

The article discusses Mesic being elected as Croatian President, quoting Deputy Prosecutor Graham Blewitt at a press conference, stating that:

“Mesic testified as a prosecution witness in May 1998 during the trial of Blaskic and Dokmanovic. At that time Blewitt said, "he indicated he was prepared to do everything he could to assist our work, because he believed it was essential in bringing long-term peace to the region."“

The report states that Blewitt was speaking at a news conference at the Hague (home of the ICTY). On the face of it, it seems as if Blewitt was himself mentioning Mesic’s appearance at the Blaskic trial to journalists. Josip Jovic and his lawyer would do well to raise this at the trial, to demand clarification of Blewitt’s comments - it may be critical to the verdict.

Quite clearly, the ICTY were unconcerned about the disclosure of Mesic‘s identity, seemingly allowing IWPR - who are well known to the ICTY - to keep the information on its website. It is also worth pointing out that Andras Riedlmayer, an expert witness for the UN prosecutors posted that report on the JUSTWATCH website. See it here:

http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0002&L=justwatch-l&D=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=75423

According to Reporters without Borders, the Serbian organisation ‘Veritas’, which helps the ICTY in its prosecution of Croat war crimes suspects, published Mesic’s identity and testimony in 1999. Did the ICTY take action? No. In fact, in 2000 the ICTY prosecutors issued them with a Letter of Endorsement.

See here: http://www.veritas.org.yu/srpski/mksj.htm

These examples are significant as they refer to Mesic’s identity and testimony being published by people well known to the ICTY. Not only was the information about Mesic and his testimony made public, it was done by those the ICTY work with or respect.

It is then quite ludicrous to suggest that Jovic committed contempt of court, given that the information was no longer confidential and in fact been put in the public domain by the ICTY themselves and those known to it - and no action had been taken. By the time Jovic had published the information, it could be considered old news.

But, unlike those mentioned above, Jovic is a strong critic of the ICTY - this is the real reason he is being prosecuted.

Jovic was issued with a ‘cease and desist’ notice dated 1 December 2000 by the ICTY. But, as the judges point out in the Marijacic/Rebic case this amounted to no more than re-entrenchment of previous statements such as the 6 June 1997 order and was nothing new. As mentioned above, the information was no longer confidential due to the action and inaction of the ICTY, making the 1 December 2000 order effectively meaningless - Jovic committed no contempt.

Since Jovic published the information about Mesic, there has been an avalanche of such information. Mesic admitted he was the witness on national television. Countless journalists mentioned it, IWPR mentioned it again on several occasions. The ICTY made no move to stop any of this. Again, this shows they were not concerned for many years.

So it was bizarre when, in 2005, Carla Del Ponte indicted three Croat journalists for revealing Mesic’s identity and testimony in 2004 - when it was rather old news. Then, a few months later, she even more bizarrely indicted Jovic for revealing the information in 2000 - five years after he had done so.

Like Jovic, the other three journalists are strong critics of Del Ponte and the ICTY.

No doubt Del Ponte and her staff thought these guys would be pushovers - that they would plead guilty, beg forgiveness, make nationalist speeches etc. This didn’t happen. One of the journalists Domagoj Margetic, went on the offensive, speaking to journalists and press freedom groups such as Reporters without Borders and gaining international support.

In a submission to the court, Margetic made it clear that he would present proof of how often Mesic’s testimony and identity had been revealed prior to the dates Margetic published them.

Del Ponte was staring total humiliation in the face - there was criticism of the ICTY already because of these indictments. Having Margetic play Mesic’s admission to the Croatian media that he was the witness would have crushed her authority, make her look a fool and show that this was a political prosecution to silence criticism.

The judges irritated Del Ponte by separating Jovic from the other 3 defendants.

Jovic would be tried separately

Del Ponte dropped the indictments against Margetic and his two co-defendants. Margetic - who defended himself - had defeated Del Ponte and got off his two colleagues into the bargain.

A clearly bitter and humiliated Del Ponte claimed that dropping the charges was to save the ICTY’s resources - a piece of nonsensical spin to obscure the fact she had no case. She no doubt thinks that Jovic is a much easier target, no doubt related to the fact he is charged with actions committed in 2000. But as shown above, she still has no case.

Indeed, one of the Judges, Judge Bonomy when confirming the dropping of charges on 20 June, took the extraordinary step of severely criticising Del Ponte. He pointed out that by dropping the charges, no resources had been saved, given that they had already been allocated and would not now be used for any other purpose. “It is an empty gesture” he damningly stated. He clearly did not believe a word she said.

He also had some comments on the forthcoming Jovic hearing, that certain matters need to be clarified to ensure justice is done, “… it may be of some importance to explain in the course of the trial why he was not indicted until 2004 for conduct in 2000, and why indeed he was not indicted until several months after the indictment of Šešelj and Margetic.”

Clearly, Jovic has a chance to repudiate the charges against him. By demonstrating how others revealed the information on Mesic before him, including the ICTY itself, and so many others since he did, which the ICTY had no problem with, he can show the public that he is innocent and the iniquity of the charges against him. How can the ICTY convict someone of revealing
something it effectively allowed to be placed in the public domain?

Lets us hope the judges throw this absurd case out.

Previous articles on this matter can be found at www.croatiafocus.com