Three Croat Journalists to Face Joint Contempt Trial

The journalists are all charged in connection with revealing the identity, statement and testimony of a protected prosecution witness in the case against Tihomir Blaskic, former wartime commander of the Bosnian Croat forces, who was sentenced to nine years in prison by The Hague for war crimes.



The witness was Stjepan Mesic, now president of Croatia, who was an opposition politician in 1998 at the time and gave his testimony behind closed doors.



Prosecutors say that Jovic revealed Mesic’s identity in his newspaper in November 2000. They further charge that despite a specific court order issued to the newspaper, it continued publishing the name of the witness and parts of his testimony throughout December of that year.



The other three journalists – Stjepan Seselj, the publisher of Hrvatsko Slovo, Marijan Krizic, the paper’s editor in chief, and Domagoj Margetic, a former editor of Hrvatsko Slovo and subsequently editor in chief of Novo Hrvatsko Slovo – have all been charged with publishing excerpts from Mesic’s testimony during November and December 2004.



The prosecution had argued that all the charges related to the “same crime” – publicising the name of a protected witness and giving information about that witness’ testimony at the tribunal.



But the judges say that Seselj and Krizic can face a joint indictment. They were working at the same newspaper, and can thus stand accused of responsibility for the same actions. They say the indictment against Margetic can be joined with the other two because he too is alleged to have transgressed the same 2004 court order by publishing the same material in his own newspaper, Novo Hrvatsko Slovo. Margetic was sent the court order in error because the tribunal thought he was still editor of the similarly-titled Hrvatsko Slovo.



The prosecution had argued that all four needed to be tried jointly on the grounds that two of the accused “explicitly justify their contemptuous publication of confidential information upon the fact that [Jovic] has previously published the same information”.



Despite these arguments, , the judges felt he should not be tried with the others. Jovic’s actions, the judges say, took place four years earlier, at a different newspaper, and were not subject to the 2004 court order.