Ante Barišić testified that ‘Karamarko voluntarily collaborated with the UDBA’

Ante Barišić, a professor at the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb and former head of the State Security Service (SDS) department in Zagreb from 1980 to 1990, testified on Tuesday that the statements made by Josip Manolić claiming that former HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko was a collaborator of the UDBA are true.

He also added that there should be a trace of his ‘recruitment’ in the documentation of former security services.

At the hearing at the Zagreb Municipal Criminal Court where Karamarko is suing Manolić for defamation over claims that he was a “UDBA informant,” Barišić stated that he has direct knowledge of the content of Manolić’s claims because he was “directly involved as an operational worker of the SDS in the proceedings within the group operational processing named ‘Trs’, which took place continuously from 1981 to 1990.” According to him, the holders of that processing were the SDS centers in Zagreb and Split, and the purpose of the operational group processing ‘Trs’ was to control the focal points of so-called hostile activities “which manifested in the form of activities of certain religious communities” and for the “purpose of identifying the holders of those activities.”

He emphasized that certain individuals who were included in that processing were later prepared for collaboration with the State Security Service.

“In the documentation regarding the group processing, there is no direct claim that the private plaintiff (Tomislav Karamarko) is an informant of the UDBA, or within our Service, but this can be inferred from the content of the documentation found in the archives. I personally wrote and signed the documentation, so an insight into the file of the operational group processing ‘Trs’ would provide answers to all questions. I cannot say in what capacity the private plaintiff was mentioned in that documentation because this can all be determined by reviewing that documentation,” said Barišić.

He also stated that in the specific case of Tomislav Karamarko, it was necessary to continue “operational combining,” and that term means that operatives received approval to continue conversations outside official premises for the purpose of preparing for recruitment. “And that was all an integral part of the process of establishing a collaborative relationship in the State Security Service,” said Barišić, adding that he was familiar with “that process” until he handed over all available documentation about that case to the “security organs of the JNA.”

‘Collaborative relationship had to be voluntary’

“The agreement on the collaborative relationship had to be exclusively voluntary because otherwise, human rights would be violated. Compromising documents could also be used to persuade someone to cooperate. When asked if such a thing was used in the case of operational combining over Tomislav Karamarko, the answer is that there were certain written materials that indicated his connections with Željko Malnar,” said Barišić, adding that these materials were not a threat to state security, but rather classic misdemeanors or “some criminal act.”

To Karamarko’s question of how it was possible that he allegedly collaborated with Malnar in 1980 when he only met him in 1994, Barišić replied that he received that information through official channels from the then security service. When asked if the then city SUP had recorded that information, Barišić responded, “How would I know that?”

Karamarko frequently interrupted Barišić during the questioning, and at one point he threw at him, “Shame on you, you beat people, and now you are saying something.”

Officially, his lawyers objected to the truthfulness of Barišić’s testimony, stating that he is “motivated by personal animosity,” which is “evident from the fact that he himself, after Josip Manolić’s interview with the controversial statement, also gave an interview in which he repeated similar claims” that Karamarko was a collaborator of the UDBA.

Karamarko’s defense: Barišić did not offer any evidence for his claims

In addition, they pointed out that Barišić, as a defense witness, did not offer any material or personal evidence. The defense subsequently proposed Stjepan Mesić and Krunislav Olujić as witnesses, while Karamarko’s lawyers proposed Smiljan Reljić and Božo Kovačević, the former head of the SDS in Zagreb.

The court accepted the questioning of Kovačević, as well as the defense’s proposal to obtain documentation about the operation ‘Trs,’ the delivery of which will first be requested from the Croatian State Archive, and only after that will a decision be made about hearing other witnesses. The next hearing is scheduled for early June.

Karamarko announced the lawsuit against Manolić, for whom he is seeking a penalty of 350 daily incomes, a few days after the publication of the controversial interview by Nacional in June 2015. He assessed Manolić’s claims that he collaborated with the then State Security Service in the late 1980s, which blackmailed him due to connections with petty criminals, as lies and slanders disseminated in public “for political motives and for electoral purposes.”

At that time, Karamarko also claimed that some former SDS employees who operated on him were ready to testify in court that Manolić’s accusations against him were false, meaning that he was not a collaborator of the secret service of former Yugoslavia, but rather a victim of the SDS’s operational action codenamed ‘Trs.’

He emphasized that he has openly promoted pro-European and anti-totalitarian policies his entire life and that Manolić wants to discredit him because he advocates for the prosecution of those responsible for communist crimes.

In addition to Manolić, Karamarko also sued the weekly Nacional over the controversial interview, against which he received 70,000 kuna in a non-final judgment.