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 later.

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 journalist, 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 publishing them.

Del Ponte was staring was staring total humiliation in
the face - there was criticism of the ICTY already
because of these indictments. Having Magetic 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 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 Seselj 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

© Brian Gallagher