Croatian Journalist Denies Contempt of Court

A one-day hearing was convened at the Hague tribunal this week in order for the prosecution and defence to argue their respective cases in proceedings against a Croatian journalist accused of revealing the identity of a protected witness and publishing parts of his testimony.



With the proceedings completed in a matter of hours, the judges withdrew to consider their verdict.



Josip Jovic, the former editor of the Croatian daily Slobodna Dalmacija, is said to have “knowingly and wilfully interfered with the administration of justice” through his actions between November 27 and December 29, 2000.



If found guilty of contempt of court, he could face up to seven years imprisonment, as well as a fine of 100,000 euro.



Earlier this year, judges formally made public that the witness in question was Stjepan Mesic, the current president of Croatia. As an opposition politician in 1998, Mesic testified in the war crimes trial of the Bosnian Croat commander Tihomir Blaskic, with a promise that his identity would not be revealed.



Jovic was arrested by the Croatian authorities in October 2005 after failing to appear before the tribunal of his own accord. Having been transferred to the Hague, he pleaded not guilty and was released pending the start of his trial.



On July 3, the date originally set for his case to be heard in court, he again failed to show. His defence counsel, Kresimir Krsnik, said at the time that his client was absent due to his wife’s poor health.



When he finally turned up for the rescheduled July 11 trial hearing, Jovic, 56, informed the court that he too was suffering health problems. “I have an ear infection,” he complained. “I didn’t allow it to prevent me from appearing here, but please have an understanding for me. I may not be taking things in fully.”



Addressing the substance of the case, Jovic confirmed that after he first began publishing Mesic’s witness statement and the fact that he had appeared as a protected witness, he received a court injunction by fax on December 1, 2000 ordering him to stop.



But he said that the fact Mesic had testified was already in the public domain, and parts of his testimony had been published in other media, including in the Croatian weekly Globus.



“Soon after [Mesic] appeared as a witness before the tribunal, there were no longer any secrets about the fact that he’d appeared as a witness before the [tribunal],” he said.



Defence lawyer Krsnik added that at one point in the whole episode, Mesic himself had actually told the press that he personally was in favour of lifting the secrecy surrounding his testimony. And Krsnik went on to argue there was a clear public interest in the story.



“As a prominent politician... everything he does is bound to arouse interest from Croatia’s citizens. When this man testifies, he does not testify as a victim. He can’t be subject to the sort of manipulation, threats or whatever reasons there are for granting protective measures as a witness,” said Krsnik.



Jovic claimed that on receiving the court order to desist from publishing Mesic’s identity and testimony, he sought legal advice and received “contradictory instructions and interpretations”.



“I was not certain, nor am I now, whether the [tribunal] can issue orders to me that affect my right to enjoy freedom in informing my readership,” he said, adding that he had even consulted the office of the public prosecutor in Croatia, who did not believe that the order had power over him.



Krsnik claimed that the tribunal could not issue orders directly to citizens, and criticised the Croatian government for failing to take action in response to the order sent to his client.



The defence counsel also pointed to the fact that prosecutors had dropped proceedings against three other Croatian journalists who had been due to face trial in The Hague on related charges. Krsnik claimed that the decision to single out his own client was “hypocritical”.



Prosecutor David Akerson, for his part, argued that the case against Jovic was clear-cut. He presented numerous excerpts from Slobodna Dalmacija as evidence that Jovic had breached two tribunal court orders - the order to desist from publishing Mesic’s name and testimony which was sent to him in December 2000, and also the original order issued in April 1998 which first determined that Mesic’s testimony was to be heard in private.



“Your honours, this is one of the simpler contempt cases you will encounter. And at the same time, it’s one of the most egregious,” he said, accusing Jovic of going so far as to flaunt his illegal behaviour.



“Slobodna Dalmacija published its intent to disobey the order on its front pages,” he told the court, in reference to the injunction issued on December 2000. “It published the order itself and it then published the entirety of Mesic’s closed session testimony across 22 issues, in a brazen violation of the court order and in utter and open contempt of this tribunal.



“On December 3, Slobodna Dalmacija declares on its front page that the Hague tribunal has forbidden [the newspaper] to publish Mesic’s testimony... The next day, on December 4, Jovic, on the front page, declares in large, bold font that he doesn’t have any moral responsibility to The Hague.”



As the editor-in-chief of Slobodna Dalmacija, Akerson said Jovic was responsible for his newspaper’s actions.



He dismissed the evidence supplied by the defence that Mesic’s identity was already in the public domain as irrelevant to the question of whether or not Jovic was guilty of contempt of court. The only way this might become a factor in the case, he said, was as a mitigating circumstance when it came to considering what sentence Jovic should receive.



In his closing statement, Akerson said ignorance of the law was no defence for defying the court. And he insisted that to allow Jovic to get away with ignoring a court order could undermine the credibility of the tribunal and deter witnesses from coming forward in future.



Jovic’s case has attracted criticism from journalists’ rights organisations, including Reporters Without Borders, RSF.



At the end of this week’s trial hearing, presiding judge Patrick Robinson said a judgement would be issued shortly.



Caroline Tosh is an IWPR contributor in London.