"Public hearings are not reality shows"

"Public hearings are not reality shows"

How do you consider the request of the lawyers of the defendants that investigation on Curuvija’s murder should be open to public? One of the arguments for its making it public is that the public is already involved, as well as you personally, and the Commission that you chair, in the initiation of the investigation?

VERAN MATIC: This would make the investigation completely senseless.

The arguments in favor of this move are wrong. As the information from the investigation leak to some of the media, they would like to provide equal conditions by legitimizing those leaks, and to the media they would prefer for these information to be published in. It is deeply insulting for our profession, for the state of law and for the system itself that media are treated as the weapon in anyone’s hands, be it in the hands of prosecution or in the hands of defense.

The goal is, I suppose, that investigations and court proceedings should not be waged in the media, either those that favor prosecution, or those that favor defense, but it should take place in the prosecutor’s department and in the courts.

Therefore, we should fight against abusing print media in the process in order to prevent the leaks of information, if there are any, instead of making those ’leaks’ legitimate, making it possible to leak to all parties, not just to the ’suitable’ ones.

The lawyers claim that the Commission was composed mainly of journalists, which is not true, as journalists make only third part of the Commission. All of us were obliged to treat the information confidential, and we complied with this principle.

The lawyers that represent the family of the damaged – Rajko Danilovic and Nikola Barovic had nothing against making this investigation public. How do you consider this fact?

VERAN MATIC: My standpoint is the same, having in mind this fact. They are very well acquainted with the case, but I believe that the whole investigation proceedings would turn into a big reality show that would make senseless the crime itself, and the victim, and truth determination... Instead of legal process, we would witness the wars among PR headquarters. I really think that as a system and society, we are not ready for this kind of project.

Public hearings make sense in the right context, as was the case with the South-African Commission for Truth and Reconciliation where public testimonies of the victims and perpetrators served as a kind of catharsis, it pacified anger, and decreased the danger from civil war, etc. Here, we have a case of cold-blooded murder for which facts should be determined, an indictment should be made public, and then convey the process that will also be public.

I consider that in the same time with this process, it would be possible to open a public debate that would include testimonies on the crimes committed by the state institutions on behalf of state representatives. I am convinced that for healing of our society, we need to introduce our citizens in this way also with what the state and its representatives had done to our citizens and to the citizens of foreign states.

Has the Commission finished its mandate when it comes to the Curuvija case? If not, in what way you keep participating, and can the public expect that the Commission will publish some of the documents and findings on this and other cases, in due time?

VERAN MATIC: The Commission’s mandate is not finished in Curuvija’s case. Apart from following the work of the Prosecutor’s Office, we continue to collect relevant facts and opinions in a way that we used to do so far.

As the Prosecution took over the preparation of the indictment, then the Commission had more time on its disposal to deal with other cases. As all the cases are practically still ongoing, Commission will introduce the public only with the information and in a way that will not jeopardize investigation, that are being implemented by the working groups of MUP, in cooperation with BIA representatives.

Commission fully respects Prosecution Office for organized crimes’ independence and it has no insight into the work of the Prosecution in case of Slavko Curuvija’s murder.

Moreover, Commission supports the work of this and other prosecutions, and it forwards all information that it gets to MUP work groups, or directly to the competent prosecutor’s offices.

How do you comment on the claims that by establishing the Commission, you had provided SNS leader Aleksandar Vucic the opportunity to dissociate himself from his political past?

VERAN MATIC: When the Commission was established, it was accused of being another commission that will serve for camouflaging things and prevent the establishment of truth. Now, when we have concrete results, they are connected with the project of distancing First Deputy Prime Minister from his past. There is no way for any commission to take off the burden from someone’s back, granting amnesty to him, by solving concrete problems. Every person needs to go through this process on his own. Solving of these cases is crucially important for our society, for our profession, future, and this is the only motive I had when I initiated its establishment, and I had done so earlier, proposing it to president Tadic… If there are some useful effects along the way, in the sense that someone got aware of the mistakes he had done in the past, even better.

Except for the announced interview to be conducted in the prison in Bosnia-Herzegovina with one suspect, is there any other progress in case of Milan Pantic?

VERAN MATIC: In the course of our work, we had found out that one citizen in one foreign country had testified to police department that a man who participated in the murder of journalist Milan Pantic lives in that country, now using another name. By checking this information, we got confirmation that this really happened. We expect to get response from that country as to what its police had done regarding this, and we will get it through the cooperation of the two countries.

We had another testimony that corresponds with another one previously taken, when it comes to the executioners and possible master minds of the murder, and working group investigates this.

The interview with one of the possible executioners in prison in BiH hadn’t been realized this week due to extraordinary circumstances, namely Bosnian Prosecutor was not in a position to attend this hearing.

Working group had established direct communication with the authorities in BiH, so in the forthcoming period, no longer than two weeks (as the court and prosecution in Bosnia-Herzegovina claim), we will carry out this interview with the convict in prison, as well as with another two persons to which investigation had led, that have certain information on the executioners of the murder and those who ordered it.

Has the expertise from Wiesbaden in case of Dada Vujasinovic arrived yet?

VERAN MATIC: I have already said that we got response from the Institute in Wiesbaden that they are not in a position to do super-expertise, as they say in their expostulation, "…unfortunately, there is not enough forensic materials submitted for giving the answer to the main question...".

Through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we have sent request to the FBI asking them if they could do this job, but we still haven’t got any feedback from them. We have sent request to yet another institute with great references in this field, and we got their preliminary response that they are willing to do so, and we will make arrangements with the Prosecution about making next moves.

As for RTS, here’s the progress:

In case of determining the responsibility for the murder of 16 media workers of RTS, we had focused on defining conclusions that we found in the present responses of diverse institutions, in order to present all the arguments to the Prosecution, which are enough for commencing a serious investigation. Moreover, we still work on collecting data on pilots’ communication with their bases, and pilots’ mutual communication, trying to reach this documentation through our institutions.

Surely, in the same time, we work on making conditions for this crime to be regarded as war crime without precedent when it comes to completely unauthorized attack on a media house.