Croatia to extradite whistleblower who alleged Dutch oil firm spent millions in bribes

September 21, 2021 by 2 Comments

Monaco

A WHISTLEBLOWER WHO CLAIMS that a major Dutch oil firm paid millions in bribes to officials in return for lucrative contracts, is to be extradited to Monaco, following his arrest in Croatia last summer. Jonathan Taylor, of Southampton, United Kingdom, was a lawyer working for SBM Offshore, a Netherlands-based group of companies that provide services to the global offshore oil and gas industry. In 2012, he leaked documents allegedly showing that SBM Offshore “paid €185 million [$217 million] in bribes in several countries between 2005 and 2011”, in return for being awarded service contracts.

But SBM Offshore accused him of extortion and claimed that he stole proprietary documents and then tried to blackmail his employer, asking for $3 million in exchange for staying silent about the alleged bribes. Following this accusation, authorities in Monaco, which hosts an SBM Offshore regional facility, issued an Interpol “red notice” for Taylor’s detention. A red notice is essentially a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally detain a person of interest, pending a possible extradition.

In July of this year, Taylor was arrested in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where he was holidaying with his family, by local police acting on the Interpol’s red notice. Immediately following his arrest, the government of Monaco sought to have him extradited there “for questioning”, even though he had not been charged with a crime. According to Monegasque police, Taylor was wanted “for questioning to determine whether or he should be charged” with a crime.

Taylor and his lawyers deny the claims against him, which they describe as acts of retaliation for him having blown the whistle on SBM Offshore. Now, however, authorities in Monaco have summoned Taylor to appear before a magistrate, after the Supreme Court of Croatia upheld an extradition ruling that was issued by a lower court earlier this year. This means that Croatian authorities should soon be extraditing Taylor to Monaco, as per the principality’s request. However, Taylor currently remains in Croatia and he and his supporters have urged the Croatian authorities to not comply with Monaco’s extradition request.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 September 2021 | Permalink

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Germany extradites spy to Croatia to serve 30-year sentence for role in assassination

July 12, 2019 by Leave a comment

Josip Perkovic Zdravko MustacGermany has extradited a former senior official of the Yugoslav intelligence service to Croatia, where he is expected to serve a 30-year prison sentence for organizing the assassination of a dissident in Munich in 1983. Josip Perković is a former senior official in the Yugoslav State Security Service, known as UDBA. In 2014, he was extradited to Germany from Croatia alongside another former UDBA officer Zdravko Mustać. The two men were tried in a German court in the Bavarian capital Munich for organizing the assassination of Stjepan Đureković on July 28, 1983. Đureković’s killing was carried out by UDBA operatives in Wolfratshausen, Bavaria as part of a UDBA operation codenamed DUNAV. Đureković, who was of Croatian nationality, was director of Yugoslavia’s state-owned INA oil company until 1982, when he suddenly defected to West Germany. Upon his arrival in Germany, he was granted political asylum and began associating with Croatian nationalist émigré groups that were active in the country. It was the reason why he was killed by the government of Yugoslavia.

In 2016, both men were found guilty of organizing Đureković’s murder and were sentenced to life imprisonment, a sentence that was upheld by Germany’s Supreme Court in May. Last year, a court in the Croatian capital Zagreb commuted Perković’s prison sentence to 30 years so that he could be extradited there, since the Croatian justice system does not recognize life prison sentences. A statement from the German Interior Ministry said on Thursday that Perković had been transported to Zagreb on a regular flight from Munich “without incident”. Perković’s extradition to Croatia also concluded a long-standing bureaucratic battle between the former Yugoslav Republic and the European Union. In 2013, shortly before joining the EU, Croatia made it illegal to extradite individuals abroad for crimes committed before 2002. It is believed that Croatian officials changed the law in an attempt to protect armed Croatian nationalists who engaged in criminal activity during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s from being tried in European courts. Following systematic pressure from the EU, Croatia scrapped the extradition restriction and sent Perković and Mustać to Germany.

Legal proceedings to extradite Mustać to Croatia to serve his sentence there are continuing. Meanwhile, the two former spies have sued the German state at the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that they were not given a fair trial in Munich. Anto Nobilo, who represented Perković in court, said that the European Court of Human Rights is likely to rule in favor of his client and that he will be “released in a year or two”. If this happens, Croatia will have to re-extradite Perković to Germany to face a new trial.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 July 2019 | Permalink

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Bosnia accuses Croatian spy services of arming Islamists

March 15, 2019 by Leave a comment

Dragan MekticAuthorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina have accused the government of Croatia of deliberately arming militant Islamists in order to damage Bosnia’s reputation and sabotage its campaign to join the European Union. The claims were aired by a Bosnian government minister on Thursday, a day after allegations of a weapons-smuggling plot by Croatia were made in the Bosnian media. On Wednesday, Zurnal, a Bosnian investigative website, alleged that the Croatian intelligence services had recruited a Bosnian national and used him to smuggle weapons and explosives into the majority Muslim country.

According to Zurnal, the Bosnian man was “intercepted” by Croatian intelligence while driving through Croatia on his way to Bosnia. He was traveling to Bosnia from an unnamed “European Union country”, where he allegedly lives. The Zurnal report alleges that officers of Croatia’s Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) had evidence that the Bosnian man was a supporter of the Islamic State and threatened to notify the authorities in his country of residence. They then allegedly used this threat in order to pressure the Bosnian man to smuggle weapons and explosives into Bosnia and hide them in a mosque in Zenica, a city of about 100,000 residents in central Bosnia.

On Thursday, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Minister of Security, Dragan Mektic (pictured), accused the SOA of plotting the weapons-smuggling operation in an attempt to damage Bosnia’s reputation. The goal of the operation, said Mektic, was to paint Bosnia as a center of Islamic State activity in Europe and sabotage the country’s efforts to join the European Union —of which Croatia is already a member. Also on Thursday, the office of Bosnia’s state prosecutor announced that an investigation had been launched into whether Croatian intelligence agencies had attempted to recruit other Bosnian citizens with known extremist views.

Since 2014, Croatian and Serbian security agencies have repeatedly warned that hundreds of Bosnian Muslims traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State, and that many of them have since returned to the Balkans. But the Bosnian government argues that extremist Islam has no place in the country, whose predominantly Muslim population follows moderate versions of the religion. Late on Thursday, the Croatian government dismissed Mektic’s claims as “groundless” and said that they were aimed at harming relations between Bosnia and Croatia. No information has been released about the identity of the Bosnian arms smuggler, his current whereabouts or the fate of the alleged operation.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 March 2019 | Permalink

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German court sentences ex-Yugoslav spies to life for 1983 murder of dissident

August 4, 2016 by Leave a comment

Josip PerkovićA German court has given life sentences to two senior intelligence officers in Cold-War-era Yugoslavia, who masterminded the murder of a Croat dissident in 1983. Josip Perković and Zdravko Mustać, both former senior officials in the Yugoslav State Security Service, known as UDBA, were extradited to Germany from Croatia in 2014. They were tried in a German court in the Bavarian capital Munich for organizing the assassination of Stjepan Đureković on July 28, 1983. Đureković’s killing was carried out by UDBA operatives in Wolfratshausen, Bavaria as part of an UDBA operation codenamed DUNAV. Đureković, who was of Croatian nationality, was director of Yugoslavia’s state-owned INA oil company until 1982, when he suddenly defected to West Germany. Upon his arrival in Germany, he was granted political asylum and began associating with Croatian nationalist émigré groups that were active in the country. It was the reason why he was killed by the government of Yugoslavia.

The court proceedings in Munich included dramatic testimony by another former UDBA operative, Vinko Sindicić, who named both Perković and Mustać as direct accomplices in Đureković’s murder. Sindicić told the court that Perković was acting on orders to kill the German-based dissident, which came directly from the office of UDBA Director Zdravko Mustać. He added that Perković helped organize the logistics of Đureković’s assassination, including the location in Munich where the killing actually took place. Sindicić told the court that a female UDBA operative living in Munich was also involved in organizing the operation, and that the weapons used to kill Đureković had been secretly transported to Germany through Jadroagent, an international shipping and freight company based in Yugoslavia.

On Wednesday, the court found both former UDBA officials guilty of complicity in the assassination of Đureković and convicted them for life. German media reported that the convicted men’s defense team plans to appeal the ruling by advancing the case to Germany’s Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, which is Germany’s highest ordinary-jurisdiction court. Perković and Mustać declined requests to make comments to the press at the end of the trial. It is believed that at least 22 Croat nationalists were murdered in West Germany by the Yugoslavian intelligence services during the Cold War.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 04 August 2016 | Permalink

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Ex-Yugoslav spy testifies in German trial about 1983 murder of dissident

July 6, 2016 by Leave a comment

Josip Perkovic Zdravko MustacA former officer in the Cold-War-era Yugoslav intelligence service has begun testifying at a trial concerning the 1983 murder in Germany of a Yugoslav dissident by assassins sent by authorities in Belgrade. Stjepan Đureković, who was of Croatian nationality, defected from Yugoslavia to Germany in 1982, while he was director of Yugoslavia’s state-owned INA oil company. Upon his arrival in Germany, he was granted political asylum and began associating with Croatian nationalist émigré groups that were active in the country. He was killed on July 28, 1983, in Wolfratshausen, Bavaria. His killing was part of an operation codenamed DUNAV, which was conducted by the Yugoslav State Security Service, known by its Serbo-Croatian acronym, UDBA.

In 2009, following testimonies by several former UDBA agents, who were arrested in connection with the crime, the Office of the German Federal Prosecutor issued a European Arrest Warrant for Josip Perković, a former senior official in the UDBA. He is accused of having played a central role in organizing Đureković’s assassination. In 2014, Croatia, where Perković has been living since the demise of Yugoslavia, agreed to extradite Perković to Germany. The agreement materialized after heavy pressure was exercised on Croatia by the European Commission, after the country’s admission into the European Union.

Perković is now co-defendant in the trial taking place in Munich, along with another former UDBA intelligence official, Zdravko Mustać (see photo). Tuesday’s proceedings included testimony by another former UDBA man, Vinko Sindicić, who named both Perković and Mustać as direct accomplices in Đureković’s murder. Sindicić told the court that Perković was acting on orders to kill the German-based dissident, which came directly from the office of UDBA Director Zdravko Mustać. He added that Perković helped organize the logistics of Đureković’s assassination, including the location in Munich where the killing actually took place. Sindicić told the court that a female UDBA operative living in Munich was also involved in organizing the operation, and that the weapons used to kill Đureković had been secretly transported to Germany through Jadroagent, an international shipping and freight company based in Yugoslavia. During his testimony, which lasted for several hours, Sindicić claimed that the two men who carried out Đureković’s murder were UDBA assassins Branko Bijelić and Luka Sekula. The former died in 2004, but the latter still lives in Sweden and has yet to be extradited to Germany in connection with the murder trial.

It is worth noting that Sindicić spent a decade behind bars for his role in a failed attempt to kill another Yugoslav dissident émigré, Nikola Stedul, whom the UDBA tried to kill in the United Kingdom in 1988. Further charges against him were dropped in 2000, in a trial where he stood accused of complicity in the murder of yet another exiled Yugoslav dissident, Bruno Busić, who was killed in Paris in 1978. Both Perković and Mustać deny any involvement in Đureković’s assassination.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 July 2016 | Permalink

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Croatian court authorizes extradition of ex-spy official to Germany

January 13, 2014 by Leave a comment

Josip PerkovićBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A court in the Croatian capital Zagreb has ruled in favor of the extradition of the country’s former spy chief to Germany, where he is wanted for the communist-era murder of a Yugoslav dissident. Josip Perković was a senior official in the Yugoslav State Security Service (known by its Serbo-Croatian acronym, UDBA) during the closing stages of the Cold War. He is a prime suspect in the murder of Stjepan Đureković, a Yugoslav defector who was killed by UDBA agents in 1983. Đureković, who was of Croatian nationality, defected from Yugoslavia to Germany in 1982, while he was director of the state-owned INA oil company. Upon his arrival in Germany, he was granted political asylum and began associating with Croatian nationalist émigré groups that were active in the country. He was killed on July 28, 1983, in Wolfratshausen, Bavaria, in a UDBA operation codenamed DUNAV. In 2009, following testimonies by several former UDBA agents, who were arrested in connection with the crime, the Office of the German Federal Prosecutor issued a European Arrest Warrant for Perković, who is believed to have authorized Đureković’s assassination. However, Croatia consistently refused to honor the warrant and allowed Perković to live in Zagreb. The reason, according to observers, was that the former spy official was instrumental in helping set up Croatia’s first post-independence intelligence agency, which he directed for the first few years of its existence. His contribution to the establishment of Croatia’s intelligence apparatus has contributed to his political legacy in the country, which effectively shielded him from extradition to Germany. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0167

November 5, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • DAS official confirms Colombia spying on Ecuador. An official of Colombia’s DAS intelligence service has admitted Colombia “had an informant in the Ecuadorean security forces”. The revelation comes days after Venezuelan officials claimed they had uncovered Operation SALOMON, a joint Colombian-US espionage operation against Ecuador.
  • Clinton meets Libyan ex-intelligence chief. While attending a regional-development conference in Morocco, US secretary of state Hilary Clinton met briefly with Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa. Kusa, who served as Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi’s intelligence chief during the 1990s, was expelled from Britain in 1980 for his alleged involvement in assassinating a Gaddafi opponent in London. Clinton has a talent for meeting with controversial foreign spies.
  • Ex-Yugoslav secret agent arrested in Germany. German authorities have arrested a man with Croatian and Swedish citizenships, identified only as “Luka S.”, who allegedly participated in the 1983 murder of Stjepan Durekovic, an exiled Yugoslav dissident living in Germany. Another accomplice in Durekovic’s assassination, identified only as “Kronoslav P.”, was jailed in 2008.

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International mercenary cell uncovered in Bolivia

April 20, 2009 by 5 Comments

Eduardo Flores

Eduardo Flores

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last month, the Bolivian government expelled a senior “diplomat” from the US embassy in La Paz, whom it accused of covertly supporting efforts to depose the country’s leftist president, Evo Morales. This past week, Bolivian authorities announced they had foiled operations by a major international anti-government mercenary group operating out of the city of Santa Cruz, a hotbed of anti-government activity in the country’s wealthy eastern provinces. Three of the unit’s members, a Bolivian of Croatian descent, an Irishman and a Romanian, were killed by Bolivian security forces; two others, a Hungarian and another Bolivian of Croatian descent, were captured and are now in custody. What were the plans of the covert unit, and who is behind it? Read article →

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