Milosevic Ally in Missing Archives Probe

Just a week after the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic resumed in The Hague, his former chef de cabinet has unexpectedly become the subject of a criminal investigation.

Goran Milinovic – the civil servant closest to Milosevic during both his Serbian and Yugoslav presidencies - is suspected of concealing or destroying an archive requested by the Hague tribunal which relates to the activities of Serbian security forces in Kosovo in 1998.

The Belgrade government is clearly hoping that the police inquiry will be seen as a sign of its willingness to cooperate with the tribunal, with which it has had a rocky relationship for the last year.

Besides asking for the surrender of 20-odd fugitives presumed to be living in Serbia, Hague prosecutors have also been complaining for a long time about the Belgrade government’s failure to hand over a myriad of documents, which it says it has been unable to find.

The Serbian authorities’ conspicuous reluctance to investigate the circumstances of the documents’ apparent disappearance has been seen as an indication that officials were either still concealing the records or sheltering the people who destroyed them.

Announcing the opening of investigation into Milosevic’s former chef de cabinet, the head of the national council for cooperation with the tribunal, Rasim Ljajic was eager to dispel the aforementioned view.

"We could not find these documents at all and, in the end, it turned out that they had gone missing inexplicably,” he said at a press conference in Belgrade, adding that this was why Milinovic was being investigated.

A report filed by the Serbian police organised crime department says that Milinovic is suspected of hiding or destroying some 160 documents of the joint command in Kosovo, which add up to a total of some 1500 pages.

According to the police, Milinovic had received these documents in November 1998 from the Pristina Corps command in his capacity as Milosevic’s chef de cabinet.

The documentation is only part of a whole body of records Hague tribunal judges last year ordered Serbia and Montenegro to locate.

Other documents Belgrade was required to produce included material on the Novi Sad corps activities and the training of volunteers in special units of the Yugoslav army in 1995.

Belgrade observers believe Milinovic would have had access to a good deal of confidential documentation as he was regarded as being close to Milosevic.

Bratislav Grubacic, of the VIP news agency, said he was a loyal civil servant who attended many important meetings.

Never a public figure, Milinovic continued to keep a low profile after the ousting of Milosevic four years ago. He is also believed to be one of the few Milosevic aides who did not acquire personal wealth through his association with the former regime.

Given the sensitivity of the case, lawyers suspect that if the case goes to trial it will be closed to public.

“If we are talking about highly confidential military or police documents, then that it is how the whole matter will be handled,” said prominent Belgrade lawyer Borivoje Borovic.

Under the law, a person found guilty of damaging or hiding state archives could face a sentence of between three months to three years imprisonment. If the documentation at issue is of great value and importance, Borovic said, then the jail terms range from one to eight years.

Daniel Sunter is a regular IWPR contributor in Belgrade. Ana Uzelac, IWPR programme manager in The Hague, contributed to this report.