Serbian Police Documents Were Destroyed

After the fall of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, but while his secret police chief remained in office, vast numbers of police documents were destroyed and illegal copies of files on former opposition leaders were spirited away, Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said Thursday.

“The period from Oct. 5 until Jan. 25 was used for the active destruction of evidence,” Mihajlovic told a session of the Serbian parliament’s Defense and Security Committee. “In our ministry, tons and tons of materials were destroyed.”

There also was “unauthorized copying onto CDs of data from the files of all opposition leaders, which was taken away from the [secret police] service for still unknown reasons,” Mihajlovic said. Charges have been filed against people suspected of being responsible for the destruction and theft, he said.

The decision not to force out former Serbian secret police chief Rade Markovic much more quickly was a matter of bitter dispute among the former opposition figures who came to power in Yugoslavia and Serbia, the country’s main republic, after Milosevic was driven from office in October.

Mihajlovic’s announcement could intensify criticism of those who advocated a go-slow approach to dismantling the remains of the Milosevic regime, including Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica.

The interior minister did not comment on why the illegal copies of files may have been removed. But given the type of surveillance conducted by Milosevic’s secret police, such data could potentially give his allies the ability to blackmail the country’s new leaders by threatening to release information about corruption, sexual affairs or other compromising matters.

Mihajlovic also told the committee that an investigation has found that Markovic ordered a 1999 assassination attempt on Vuk Draskovic, then a prominent opposition leader. Markovic has been arrested in connection with that incident.

Individuals from the secret police have admitted to the attack and named Markovic as its organizer, Mihajlovic said. He added that 30 to 40 witnesses can confirm this.

A key issue still facing investigators is whether they can link the killings to Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, according to several top leaders who have spoken out on the question in recent days. The former first lady is not related to Rade Markovic.

Touching on another high-profile case, Mihajlovic said secret police who trailed journalist Slavko Curuvija on the day of his 1999 slaying said his killers were recruited from the criminal underworld.

Two or three months of investigative work are still needed to conclude key cases of political murders and file charges, Mihajlovic said.

Meanwhile, Hans Holthuis, registrar of the U.N. war crimes tribunal, met Thursday with Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic to discuss issues related to Milosevic’s arrest last weekend, including the international court’s demand that the former leader be transferred to The Hague to face war crimes charges.

“I brought the indictment and arrest warrant with me, and I want to be very sure that it’s served on Mr. Milosevic,” Holthuis told reporters. The registrar is due to hand over the documents to Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac today.

Batic urged the court to broaden its investigations to include former ethnic Albanian guerrilla leaders, in particular Hashim Thaci, the former head of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. Thaci is now a key political figure in U.N.-administered Kosovo, a province of Serbia.

“The crimes of Albanian terrorists that started in 1998 still continue,” Batic said in a letter to U.N. tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte that was given to Holthuis and released to the media. “Serbs--men, women and children--are dying every day at the thresholds of their houses in their own country. Mrs. Del Ponte, the scales of justice have to be equal for everybody, because the crimes were committed by all sides, Serbs and Croats and Muslims and Albanians.”

Batic told reporters that his meeting with Holthuis was “a symbolic gesture of direct contact between the Yugoslav authorities and The Hague tribunal. It’s transparent proof of our cooperation with the court.”

Batic said authorities in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, also discussed other issues with the delegation from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, including the legal procedures that will apply to Milosevic in facing the domestic corruption charges on which he was arrested last weekend, the provisions of Yugoslav law as they apply to the Milosevic case, and ways in which Yugoslavia and Serbia will cooperate with investigators from the tribunal.

The U.N. court indicted Milosevic and four senior associates in 1999, alleging crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war for conduct of their forces in Kosovo.